The Enemies’ Camp

© Sandy Haga

2003

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The Enemies’ Camp Table of Contents

Chapter Page Our Rights As Children of God 3 The Enemy 4 The Enemies’ Camp 8 The Victory 11 Recovering All—David 13 When Weakness Becomes Strength –The Lepers 18 When You Dwell In the Enemies’ Camp –Lot 24 When The Lord Sends the Enemies’ Camp –Job 30 When We Become The Enemies’ Camp –Saul 34 When The Enemies’ Camp Is Your Promised Land –Joshua 40 What Has Happened To Our Children –The Children of Israel 45 When It Seems Nobody Is Listening 47 When The Weak Become Strong –Gideon 51 When The Strong Become Weak –Samson 54 When the Enemy Brings His Camp to You –Jesus 60 Our Own Enemies’ Camps 64 Closing 73

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Chapter 1. Our Rights As Children Of God

I guess that one of the first questions that might come to your mind is this.

Why in the world would we want to go into the enemies’ camps? Seems to me like the enemies’ camps would be one place that we would want to avoid. In answer to that, think just for a minute of the things that the devil has stolen from you. How many times has the enemy made your territory to be an enemies’ camp? Isn’t it time to turn this around and pursue him, instead of being the pursued? Isn’t it time to overtake him and recover all that he has stolen from you, even more? If you have just been through a battle, you might be hanging onto survival. Forget pursuing and overtaking and conquering. Right? You may feel like you have just enough strength to hang on and your favorite saying lately is, I’m tying a knot in the end and hanging on”. I’m here to tell you that as a blood bought child of the most high God, your promise and your right is to pursue your enemy, overcome him, and recover all he has stolen from you. All. You may already know these things, but how to get from point A to point D is beyond you at this time. That is the devil’s job to make it seem that way. That is when you have to pull your head up enough to see God’s Word. Dig into His Word and find out who you are in Him, and Who He is in you. That is important when the devil has beaten you down. Remember God’s children are a lot like those clown toy punching bags. You may get knocked down, but before you hit bottom, you are on the way back up. You are a son of God. If you are an obedient son, you have certain rights. One of these is your right to victory. This is true no matter how weak you may feel. Another God given right is your right to put satan under your feet. Another is to rise up and take back what he has stolen from you. Hey, don’t take my word for it. You have God’s Word for it. To get a better understanding of the enemies’ camp, we have to understand the enemy. Let’s take a look.

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Chapter 2. The Enemy

Ephesians 6:10-13 tells about a battle. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in

the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.” I Peter 5:8-9 tells about the author of this battle. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.” We fight an unseen foe. We fight a spiritual enemy that is harder to fight than the flesh and blood enemies we might encounter. It is an enemy that can even disguise himself as an angel of light looking like Jesus Himself. We read in II Corinthians 11:14, “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” Matter of fact that is His greatest disguise. He won’t come against you as an evil power, but more often than not he’ll try to look like someone or something that comes directly from God. How many times have you had the devil creep up on your shoulder and whisper something in your ear that seemed to come from the throne of God? However, when things turned out the way that they did you knew that it was the devil all along. He will often disguise himself to look like the greatest thing that could happen. He will creep in unawares and bind you before you can see what is happening. He’ll cause situations to back fire, problems to come up, people to go haywire, and he’ll cause you to have feelings that you’ll think all along were your own feelings. They will turn out to come from his deceptions. I went through a time when I felt like the whole world was crashing in on me. Day to day tasks were a struggle. I lacked the strength, and the time, to get things done that I needed desperately to do. The things that I wasn’t getting done became a tremendous load. When I came to the end of what I could stand and I finally went to God, He let me know that my enemy wasn’t myself. He showed me that I had plenty of strength. My enemy was satan. Satan was bringing these things against me. I had become so overwhelmed that I was on the verge of backing up in the things that I was doing. Satan was even behind that feeling of being so overwhelmed that I couldn’t function. I was close to backing up and that was the devil’s plan all along. When God showed me what was going on, I stood up and shook myself. I took authority. All of the sudden I had plenty of time. The devil had even been creating circumstances that had eaten up my time. My strength returned. I was strengthened by the Lord. My mind cleared and I could see that the devil had created that fog that had been in my mind all along. Instead of a desperate feeling that I was clawing up a sand mountain and there was no way to

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get where I was going, I felt the peace of God. I located the enemies’ camp and I took back what was mine.

The first step in being able to overcome any enemy is being able to recognize him. In the Revolutionary War the red coats of the British didn’t stand a chance against our woodsmen and marksmen. A large part of our victory was probably due to those brilliant red coats. On the other hand, if you have ever talked to anyone who had been in Vietnam, you’ll know of a different kind of enemy. The enemy there dressed like friends. They hid themselves in caves and underground tunnels. They were called the “unseen enemy”. The devil is an “unseen enemy”. He knows that if he can keep you from identifying his tactics then he can keep you from taking authority. How can you take authority over what you can’t see? His greatest tactic is to keep you from identifying what he is doing until it is too late. To be able to see the unseen, you have to realize that this is not a physical battle, but a spiritual one. We read in II Corinthians 10:4, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.” You will never be able to win against satan by walking in the flesh. He operates in the spiritual and he attacks you in the spiritual. Even the results of his attacks are first spiritual, then they show up in the natural. When you walk in the flesh you won’t see the battle until you are reaping the outcomes in the flesh. How do we walk in the Spirit so that we can see and overcome this “hidden enemy”?

Romans 8 gives an understanding of how to walk in the Spirit. Here are some highlights in verses 5-9 and verse 12-14. “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Please read the rest of the chapter. We find here the instructions given to us for walking in the Spirit. It is a wonderful chapter. Being able to identify and withstand the devil is only one of the reasons that we must walk in the Spirit.

When we walk in the Spirit and don’t lean to our own understanding, then we can see this spiritual enemy and the battle that he brings against us. Then we can stand against him. Through the Spirit of God and through His Word we have power to withstand him. Our weapons are not carnal but strong through the Spirit of God. When he comes against our family, we can stand against him in the authority that God has given us. When he comes against our health, we can claim the promise of healing given by God’s Word. When he comes against our finances

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we can recognize and bind him and loose the blessing of God. When he tries to destroy your mind with those thoughts of fear and unbelief, you can rebuke him and stand in the promises of God’s Word. When your strength is failing and it seems that the enemy is literally choking the life out of you, you can find the joy of the Lord and your strength is renewed. We have no carnal weapons, but oh how powerful are the ones that we do possess through God. They are mighty to the breaking down of the devil’s strongholds. Yes, we have a battle, but if we walk in the Spirit, oh how sweet the victory.

The other battle that we face is the one against our own flesh and mind. It is the battle that comes against the weakness of our flesh. Romans 7:23 sums up this battle. “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Our flesh isn’t good. If we don’t keep it in control and under subjection to the Spirit of God within us, then we will find that we ourselves are our own worst enemy. Here’s one example. Scars can hinder us from stepping out in faith. Scars can hinder us in our relationship with others and our relationship with God. These both can hinder us in our obedience to God. They can cause insecurities. Insecurities leave us wide open to listen to satan’s lies. We may struggle in a certain area of our life for years and never realize that the devil is on the other side of that door holding it shut. We can bang on that door and do everything in the flesh that we can to open it. Until we realize that the battle is a spiritual battle and we walk in the Spirit taking spiritual authority, we will never open that door. When we do, we will see the victory of God and know why the devil held that door shut.

When the enemy comes against us like a roaring lion he’ll cause everything to turn out wrong. Then, if we aren’t careful, we become so discouraged that we begin to draw back and become double-minded. Then the Holy Ghost will jog us. I accidentally misspelled jog when I was typing this and wrote jab. You know that fits pretty good as well. The Holy Ghost will literally jab us. He will bring to our remembrances the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord. He will jab us so that we wake up. He will jab us with His Word. Someone will come along with just the right Word that we need to hear. Through this we will be reminded that we are overcomers and that we have authority over satan. The Holy Ghost will reveal that “hidden enemy”, and we will see clearly what is going on against us. The Holy Ghost will remind us that we are overcomers through Him. John 16:33 tells us, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulations: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” He can remind us of the result of our battle, if we will just hold on to the end. “To Him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sit down with my Father in His throne”, Revelations 3:21. This is a spiritual battle, but praise God it isn’t a battle that we fight alone.

When everything starts breaking apart and it seems the world is falling down, walk in the Spirit and remember the promises of God. For example, when a tree falls on your house the day before you learn that you need surgery (no

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kidding, this happened to me), you may as well know that the devil is loose to destroy your finances. That is when you make sure that your spiritual armor is on sound and tight. That is when you get out your sword, your Word. You read the verses that have God’s promises for financial well-being. You take authority over everything to the contrary of God’s Word for you. You strengthen your spirit in words of faith like Psalms 1:1-3, Deuteronomy 29:9, and Isaiah 3:10. You recognize that unseen enemy through the eyes of the Spirit. You take authority and bind him spiritually. You then take back what he has stolen physically.

Our first step in taking back the enemies’ camp is that we have to recognize that the battle is spiritual. Then we have to recognize the enemy. Then we have to recognize the battleground. We have to recognize the enemies’ camp.

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Chapter 3. The Enemies’ Camp

Would you agree with me that one of the most frequently used

battlegrounds that the enemy uses as an enemies’ camp is the battleground of your mind. He will weaken you physically so that your mind is weakened, then he’ll hammer away at your mind. He’ll twist and turn your thoughts so that you barely know which thoughts are yours, and which are his own twisted version. He’ll make you think that there is no hope so that you give up right before the victory is to come. Matter of fact, he can make you think that there is no hope and you’ll be right in the middle of a wonderful victory and not even see it. Your only hope is to walk in the Spirit and take on the mind of Christ. We have a promise of this in I Corinthians 2:15-16, “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ?” We have the mind of Christ when we walk in the Spirit. We have His thoughts, instead of our own. We have His Word as well, that reveals His mind to us. We have to concentrate on these things when we find ourselves in that battleground. It is a fact that the devil can make our own mind an enemies’ camp.

The devil not only comes against our mind, but he comes against our physical body as well. Have you ever had symptoms of feeling like you were literally dying? After you rebuked and bound the enemy, you found out that you were fine. Our mind and our body are carnal things that are physical. They are our physical nature. Because of this they are open to attacks from satan. If we don’t stop and seek the Spirit of God, we will give into this battle. Then we will pay in the physical. Our own body can become an enemies’ camp. I remember a time when I was driving down the four lane highway. I had severe chest pains. They were so bad that I was barely conscious. I barely remember pulling off of the road. When I came to enough to be able to see, I opened my eyes to see these words, “Healing God’s gift”. I had pulled over at a health food store, and their sign read, “Healing Herbs, God’s gift”. All I could see in my stupor was the first part of the sign. God really used that sign. I began to go over the verses in my mind that promised God’s gift of healing. I took my right of healing as a child of God. I recognized the enemy, instead of concentrating on my physical symptoms, which is a mistake. I took authority over satan. In just a short while, I was on my way. Healing is God’s gift, paid for with a price. I simply laid hold of that promise. The battleground was my physical body. I didn’t fight the battle in the physical. If I had given into those physical symptoms, they would have gotten worse. If I had given into the physical, I would have called 911. They would have carted me off to the hospital, and who knows what would have happened from there. I took authority in the Spiritual and the victory was in the flesh.

Our family can become another enemies’ camp. In today’s world, the family is on the front line. What one day is a haven of love, can overnight become

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an enemies’ camp. If the devil has his way, he will turn those we love the most against us. Our children can be stolen away from us and years of training seemingly will be undone over night, if we allow satan to control them. We have to learn to recognize his tactics before this happens. When these things happen, in reality they don’t happen over night. They do if we aren’t walking in the Spirit, and fail to see them coming. We have to be vigilant and walk in the Spirit to guard our household. All too often we don’t recognize the enemy until he has made our own household his camp. After he steals from us, it is much harder to take authority. We need to take authority every day, and then this can’t happen. Sometimes the price that we pay for being spiritually lax can be very great. Why not be on guard Then we won’t have to pay the price. The enemy will rock us to sleep and come in and steal from our own house. We have to be vigilant for the enemy is certainly a roaring lion seeking whom he will to devour. Even if that thing that he wants to devour is our children, or our spouse.

Another enemies’ camp can be our finances. If he steals our finances, he can cripple our giving to the work of the Lord. (If we aren’t giving to the work of the Lord and paying our tithes, then he already has our finances. That is God’s Word.) He also can cripple our family by causing the strife that comes when we struggle financially. He is a smart devil. When the enemy comes against my finances, I claim scripture that promises that God will restore what the enemy has taken even to an hundredfold. Sounds like a fair arrangement to me.

Another enemies’ camp is the battleground of compromise. The devil can sneak in and wear us down until we literally loose our will to fight. He can steal our commitment to the things of God. He can then cause us to become so entangled in the world that we no longer place a priority on serving God. This enemies’ camp is the most dangerous of all. Compromise is only one step away from defeat. In many of the smaller border countries in World War II, the Germans would come in with propaganda. They would tell the people how wonderful their plans were for the starving masses. They would put on a front of not being dangerous, but they would seem to be just what the people needed at that time. They would come in and possess these countries in this way. There would be little resistance. Those in these border countries actually became convinced that the enemy wasn’t dangerous, and they were lulled into passiveness. At least they were until they were marched off into the prison camps, or to the furnaces. The enemy is the enemy. When we loose sight of this because of compromise and worldly living, then we have already lost the battle. Sad to say, a large part of today’s church world no longer sees the battle. They are as far away from the victory as they are far away from knowing the One that holds the victory. We need to wake up church. We need rise up in victory and lead a lost and dying world to the cross. To do that, they need to see something in us that they want. As long as we are bound in compromise, that won’t happen.

There is the enemies’ camp of sin, which is the cruelest of all. Sin separates us from the very One who holds the victory in His hands. Sin separates us from

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the love of God, which is the reason for our existence. There is also the enemies’ camp of pride and self-righteousness. When the devil gets us caught up in our own selves to the point that we cannot admit that we are nothing without God, then he already has us. If we can’t yield to God, then we cannot walk in the Spirit, and we are easily deceived. We can have a seem-right way, but not the real thing. There is also the enemies’ camp of rebellion when we want our own way, and can’t submit to God. Other enemies’ camps are depression, bitterness, fear, lust, hurt, and the battle of a critical judgmental spirit. All these things are very real battlegrounds that can destroy our soul.

There are many battlegrounds, many enemies’ camps that we will face. We have only discussed a few. Maybe you have identified a few more in your own life as you have read this chapter. Through the Holy Ghost and through God’s Word, we recognize the enemy and we recognize his camps. That is the first step in winning. That is the first step to our victory.

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Chapter 4. The Victory

Few victories can ever be as great as spiritual victories. Think of some of

the victories in the flesh that you have won in your life. These may have been the physical challenges that you overcame, or the prizes and awards that you gained, or the advances that you have made in the natural. These might have made you feel good about yourself, but none are as life changing as the spiritual victories that you win. None could actually determine your eternal salvation. The spoils of spiritual victories are everlasting. The spoils that we gain when we come against the enemies’ camp in the Spirit are eternal. When we walk in the Spirit, we recognize the enemy, the battleground, and his camp, and we submit these to God. Then we are ready for His victory. When God works His victory in us and through us, what greater victory can we have. Here are some wonderful verses about the victory that is promised us: Romans 8:35-39, Psalms 23, Psalms 46, and I John 5:4-5. These are only a few of the victory verses in the Bible.

It is our right as children of God not only to be able to endure the enemy, but to overcome the enemy as well. We have been given the right to walk right into his camp and take back what is stolen. Victory belongs to the children of God. All too often we fail because we don’t even see the battle let alone the victory. Both must be seen in the Spirit. Instead of rising up to be overcomers, victorious in our walk with God, we settle for mediocrity. Instead of facing the enemy in his own camp, we allow him to rock us to sleep. Or we allow him to cause our battle to be so great that we lack the strength to go from day to day, let alone having the strength to storm his camp. We grow far from Calvary and the price that was paid for us, and we compromise and become so much like the enemy that many can’t tell that we aren’t one of them because of our lack of victory. Or our priorities get so out of line that we don’t even have time to recognize our battle let alone win it. Or we may judge others for the things that we fail to do ourselves, and we fail to get in reality with what is going on in our own lives. A victorious life in Christ has been paid for with the precious price of His own blood. Jesus didn’t die so that we could become compromisers, weak and double minded, and afraid of the enemy. He died to make us Sons of God. He died to give us all the rights that we are entitled to as being Sons of God. He died to give us authority over the enemy through His precious blood that He shed there on the cross. He died to be able to send us His Spirit to fill us so that we could not only overcome, but conquer and recover all as well. The enemies’ camp is ours if we will walk in all the victory that God has given us by His Word, the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Ghost in us.

Where are your enemies’ camps? What territory has God promised you through His written Word, and through His Word that He has spoken into your heart? What God has spoken into your heart is as binding and it is as settled as His written Word. It may be conditional on your obedience and the obedience of

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others, but it is a promise from God Himself. At the time that it was given, the promise that God gave Abraham was just a spoken promise. The nation of Israel stands today as a tribute to the power of God’s spoken Word, His promise made to Abraham. Is God less faithful to you?

I can be weak or I can rise up in all that God has promised me. I can inherit the land. I can overcome and the enemies’ camp is mine. Notice one thing. There would never be a victory unless we had a battle. If there would be no enemies’ camp, then there would be no victory. If we never had anything to overcome, then we would never know what it was like to be an overcomer. When we learn to praise God for the battle, no matter how bad it hurts, we are close to the victory. When we can see how blessed we are in the trials and in the midst of the battle, then we will be encouraged in our heart, and in our faith. Then we will be ready to go into the enemies’ camp.

In the chapters to come I will talk about some of the enemies’ camps that are found in the scripture. Some armies went in to the enemies’ camps and were victorious. Some armies went in to the enemies’ camps and were torn all to pieces. Some went in and ran out. Some went in and came back out not only with all that had been stolen, but also with the spoils of the enemy as well. Some went in and decided to settle down and live there amongst the enemy. As you read these pages, scope out your own enemies’ camps. Prepare for victory. You have the same Word, the same promises, the same Spirit of God, as those who took their enemies’ camps in His Word. You may have some of the same weaknesses and faults as well. But praise God you can overcome and take your land just the same as they did. Welcome to the enemies’ camp.

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Chapter 5. Recovering All

David

Many times when we talk about the enemies’ camp, we recall the verse found in I Samuel 30:8, “And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And He answered him, pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.” We also think of this verse in I Samuel 30:19. The last part of the verse tells us, “David recovered all”. We even sing these verses in a song. “I went to the enemies’ camp, and I took back what was stolen from me. He’s under my feet, under my feet. Satan is under my feet.” We may not, however, realize the full story behind this scripture. We first learn of David in I Samuel 16:12-13 when Samuel was looking for the new king so that he could anoint him from God. “And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him: for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward…” We meet David as a young shepherd boy. The day that Samuel came to seek him out he was the one that was left out in the field with the sheep. It was if his father presumed that he wasn’t the one that Samuel was seeking. Indeed he was the youngest. But God had already seen him there in the fields. He had watched him take on by faith a lion and a bear single handedly. His heart had been touched by David’s praises as he sat in the fields and sang to the Lord. Maybe this is what got God’s attention. For whatever reason, David became a man after God’s own heart, called and anointed by God. David not only found favor with God, but he found favor with the king as well. It was no accident when Saul called him to play on his harp to soothe the evil spirit that had come against him because of his disobedience. In I Samuel 17:23 though he was back in the fields with the sheep on the day that Goliath gave his challenge. His heart was pricked to stand up for the God that He loved and worshipped, and by faith he accepted the challenge. The giant fell. The Philistines as well as the Israelites knew that there was a God in Israel that day. It’s something to remember here, later on in our story, that David’s first battle fought was against a Philistine. David soon became in position of being over the men of war in I Samuel 18:5. Soon the women of Israel were meeting King Saul with a song that didn’t rate on his top 10 list. I Samuel 18:7 tells us the words of that song. “And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” Saul heard the song, and things went from good to worse for David. Saul’s jealousy is still legendary today.

David won Saul’s daughter Michal by slaying 200 Philistines. Then in our story, Saul’s jealousy grew worse. So much worse that Saul tried to pin David to the wall with a javelin. This happened more than once. David decided it was time

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to leave. He left to save his life. Then Saul began to have one main goal in his life. That goal was to destroy David. I am not sure how many years this went on, but David ran for his life from place to place for years. Every time he would settle in a place here would come Saul. He gradually was worn down by his enemy. He became afraid of Saul.

We can overcome if we do not let fear overcome us. In Job 3:25 Job spoke some great wisdom. “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” What we fear will come against us. Fear is like a hole in the wall of our faith. I remember the story of a missionary in a hostile place. The enemy had camped against him, and had surrounded his place. The missionary and his people prayed that God would hold the enemy back. This went on for several days, and the enemy was held back. Even though there was no physical barrier to keep the enemy out, they didn’t approach. However, after they became weary of the waiting and their faith wore thinner, the threat of the enemy wore them down and they became afraid. When this happened the enemy came in against them. When the missionary asked why they had waited, the enemy replied that before that night they couldn’t get through the wall that was around them. But on that night there was a hole in the wall. There had been no physical wall, but the spiritual wall that God had erected from their faith held. It held until their fear caused a hole in the wall. Fear will cause a break to come in our spiritual walls. Another thing that fear will do is to cause us to act in ways that aren’t sound. I have seen some of the most calm, wisest people, fly loose and make some of the dumbest decisions because of fear. God leads us with peace. The devil drives us with fear. Never let the devil drive you. Get God’s peace before you make decisions. David let fear get to him. Let’s look at the results.

I Samuel 27:1 tells us that David began to fear Saul. This was his decision based on that fear. “And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to see me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand.” It took several years for Saul to get to him, but the persistence of the enemy began to wear him down.

The devil will do just the same to us, if we aren’t careful. Of all places, David chose to go to the land of the Philistines to hide. He chose to go to the enemies’ camp to live. Seems to me that given David’s history with the Philistines, that he would have rather have faced the troops of Saul, than to face a whole country full of Philistines. To me, facing the Philistines would have taken more faith. Because of fear, David wasn’t thinking with a clear mind. Another thing that amazes me about all this, is that the Philistines let David live there. He even gained favor with Achish the king who gave him a city to live in called Ziklag. He moved in with the enemy because of his fear, and compromised, settling right in with them. He moved to the enemies’ camp and dwelled with them. If we aren’t careful fear can drive us into compromise as well. We will move into the enemies’ camp and eventually talk ourselves into believing that this

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is God’s will for us. It is never God’s will that we settle for less than the full riches and victory of the Lord. It wasn’t God’s will for David either. It was the enemies’ plan. When we fall into the enemies’ plan, we pay.

David was in a perilous position. When we are camping in the enemies’ camp we have to explain and justify our presence to the enemy. If you are compromising to fit into a crowd you shouldn’t be in, you will wind up compromising to fit in. You will have to become the baddest of the bad to keep your reputation low enough to fit in. David had to start looking bad to the Philistines to be able to live in their midst. I Samuel 27:8-9 tells us, “And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achish.” He went to the border of Israel and attacked cities who were traditionally enemies with Israel. He killed all the people there, so that there wouldn’t be anyone left to tell about his attack. He took all the goods from the people that he had attacked to Achish, the king, and presented it as though he had attacked Israel. He had settled in with the enemy, but he hadn’t gone to the place where he came against God’s people. He had lost his integrity, but he hadn’t lost his mind. Verse 12 tells us that Achish believed David. “And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant forever.” That sounds like the devil doesn’t it. He will boast that we are his servants forever. God, however, had better plans for this soon to be king.

It looked like David was faring pretty well in the enemies’ camp. If you are compromising out of fear, and you fail to rise up and overtake your enemy, then your enemy will eventually overtake you. The devil can give you a false sense of security that it is OK to live there and settle in with the enemy, but eventually it will cost you. Things began to turn around to the worse for David. We get a hint of what is about to happen in I Samuel 28:1-2. There was to be a battle. This would be the war of all wars between the Philistines and Israel. King Achish gave David a place of honor, beside him leading the troops. David’s game was up. He was either going to have to come against God’s people, or he was going to have to face the Philistines who were already ready for battle. If you compromise with the devil, you will wind up coming against God’s people, even if this was not in your plans. It may be through your disobedience or through your allowing a spirit of the enemy to attach itself to you and use you against God’s people. I am a firm believer that God’s people who have been born again with God’s Spirit in them cannot be devil possessed. I also know that whatever spirit you yield yourself to in your life will be the one that will use you. Romans 6:16 tells us, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey; his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” If you have people in your church that live six days a week in a compromised state, then don’t

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expect them to be used by God when they come to church. Watch them. They will be open to be used by the devil and not even know it. I need to stress that they won’t even know it. Dealing with this kind of people is hard. Guard against letting satan use them. Work with them to bring them to the place that they begin to commit and submit to God’s Spirit. If they refuse to, and if they continue to let satan use them, then put them out of your midst. This is scriptural. I see churches today that let this kind of people rule even in positions of leadership. The church itself may be so far removed from God that they don’t see the damage that this person does. As a result, the devil controls the church. When this happens, there is strife and dissension, and ultimately the devil rules. These people are flesh centered and they will come against God’s people. They will come against those that walk in the Spirit. David had allowed himself to be put into a position where it looked like he had to come against God’s people to save his own self. His compromise had ended up with his being an enemy to God’s own. However, God had a plan to rescue him. Praise God for His mercy.

The princes of the Philistines gathered together. They let it be known to the king that they wouldn’t even go into battle with a Philistine killer. They reminded Achish of the song that they had heard sung about David killing his ten thousands. They even quoted it to the king, and to David, word for word. The devil will know who you are and your stand against him. What a tragedy to wind up in his camp and hear words of victories that you had left behind repeated back to you through the enemies’ lips. Things were ready to get worse from there. David got out of that situation, but worse was on its way. That is just what happens right before God gets ready to move.

While David was in Jezreel, playing the fool to King Achish, the Amalekites invaded Ziklag, his home. Remember them. They were some of the tribes that David had attacked and killed men, women, and children so that King Achish wouldn’t know who he had attacked. You can believe that they weren’t happy with David. They attacked while he was gone. When he returned home, this is what he found in I Samuel 30:1-4, “And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire, and had taken the women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had not more power to weep.” Verse 6 tells us, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons, and for his daughters…” Verse 6 told us that he was greatly distressed. Have you ever been there? Have you ever shut your eyes so that you didn’t have to deal with the devil? Because of the pain that he caused you, have you ever settled for a halfway experience? Have you settled for walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit, because

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the price that you had to pay for walking in the Spirit was too dear? Have you ever come home to find that the devil had stolen all you had? Have you found that he had stolen your finances, or your family, or your health? Maybe he has stolen your faith. Or he may have stolen that “first love” that you had for the Lord. Maybe you are going through this now. Sometimes these things have to happen so that we turn around and get the right priorities and perspectives in our lives. I believe that on that day in Ziklag, David got real with his situation for the first time in a long while. The story of what came next is a light to all of us who might be walking in that same enemies’ camp, that same dark tunnel. The Bible tells us in verse 6 that David “encouraged himself in the Lord”. It doesn’t exactly say how he did it. I don’t really know what happened between the two of them, God and David, but I do know that when David turned around, God was there. The total direction of his life was changed that day. He then did something in verse 7 and 8 that he hadn’t done in years. These verses tell us that David enquired of the Lord. If you look up how many times prior to Ziklag that David enquired of the Lord, and how many times after that, you’ll find that it was many times. In every major decision he would enquire of the Lord what to do before he moved. If the Lord said not to go, he didn’t. However, when we read about his coming to the Philistines, we find that there he didn’t enquire. He didn’t enquire from that time to this. Praise God, he was back on speaking terms with the Lord and the Lord was ready to change his life around. Verse 8 tells God’s answer to David. “And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.” We read on to find that is exactly what David did.

I wonder if there were times in Ziklag that David felt like God had abandoned him. I wonder if he ever felt like Samuel’s anointing him had been only a bad dream. Or maybe he held onto that as a vision to light the darkness of his days there in the enemies’ camp. I don’t think that it was a coincidence that three days after he returned to Ziklag in victory a messenger came to tell him that Saul was dead. Saul had been killed in battle. The same battle that David had nearly joined against Israel. The stage was now set for David to be king.

You may be going through your own enemies’ camp where you have been living at your own Ziklag. It may be cause you have shrunk back in obeying God and stepping out in faith to do something that He has for you to do. It may be that the devil has brought fear against you that has bound you. He may have driven you into Ziklag because he knows what you are about to do in God. Or it may be that you have let the devil rock you into compromise and while you slept there he has stolen your valuables. Either way, if you are in the enemies’ camp and you are at a place where you have come to yourself, shake yourself and remember David. Encourage yourself in the Lord. Go back to the place where you left Him. When He tells you to pursue your enemies, go forth in His name. Overtake your enemy and recover all.

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Chapter 6. When Weakness Becomes Strength In The Enemies’ Camp

The Four Lepers

II Kings 7 tells us of another enemies’ camp. Samaria had been surrounded by the enemy. Syria had besieged Samaria. Nothing was coming in or going out of the city walls. There was a great famine. The famine was so great that II Kings 6:25-29 tells us what happened because of the famine. There had been many times in our ministry that we had been besieged by the devil. On one such time we had literally tens of thousands of dollars that had been mailed to us, but the mail took over a month to reach us. This wasn’t the fault of the postal service. Everything else arrived on schedule except for money. The devil had caused that much money to get lost in the mail. A lot of it was mailed in cashier’s checks and there was no way to get our money back for months. At other times we have seen those who reached out to help us in any way come under such an attack that their hand was literally cut off from being able to help before they were able to reach out to help us. We have watched people who we knew were called to be a part of a ministry go through such an extreme battle when they even started in our direction. The devil would surround us so that people were bound from coming into our “city”. Then at other times we have been under such a siege of the enemy that our prayers seemed to bounce off a brick wall between God and us. It seemed like even the Spirit of God couldn’t reach through. We could go on without finances and without people, but we couldn’t go on without the refreshing from the Lord. We had to keep praying and binding and taking authority by faith until the enemy who had surrounded us was broken. Oh what rejoicing when that day came. There will be many enemies sent by the devil who will encamp you and turn your boundaries into enemies’ camps. You can probably identify with this tactic of the devil already. Have you been through a time when it seemed the devil was literally causing everything to break and tear up that could possibly tear up? Or he besieged your health with afflictions. He will lay a siege against us in many ways. We have to remember that we may be going through all this, not because we are doing wrong, but because we are about to do something so great that it will shake the devil’s world. He is doing his best to stop this from happening. While you are under siege, one of the devil’s famous tactics is to make you think that nothing is going right because God is against you. He will lay condemnation thick against you. Or he will rush in with a feeling that there is no use to keep trying. When he does this, remember that the reason the battle is there is because there is definitely a use in what you are getting ready to accomplish. If there weren’t then he wouldn’t be attacking so. There have been many times when the devil literally confirmed that we were on the right track with what we were doing.

When we are under siege we have to hold on to God’s hand even when we can’t feel it there. We have to hold onto God’s Word and His promises that He has spoken to us. We have to stand faithful. Ephesians 6:13-14 tells us, “Wherefore

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take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore…..” Romans 14:4 tells us, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth, yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” When you are under siege, He is able to make you to be able to stand. Just hang on. He will deliver. You have His Word for it. He will deliver you just like He delivered on that day so long ago.

On that day he used some of the most unlikely soldiers to destroy the enemies’ camp. Before we talk more about the army that God used that day, let’s talk more about the kinds of people that God uses. The Thompson Chain Reference Bible that I use has a section in it called God’s Tool Chest. (Just as a footnote, I really love this Bible. It is a great Spirit filled reference Bible which is hard to find.) Think for just a minute about the characteristics of people that God can use. Take a minute to write these down before you go on to the rest of this chapter. Now let’s see if you put down the same things that God lists as qualifications that He is looking for. We find these in I Corinthians 1:27-29. This section of scripture starts in verse 25, but I have only written in verses 27 to 29. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. That no flesh should glory in His presence.” God does not want someone to use who will go about to prove to the world how great they are, even if it is in the disguise of saying they are proving how great God is. He wants to use someone who will prove how great His is. He chooses those who have weaknesses so that He can reveal His strength in them. Who encourages you the most? Those people who have it all together and are doing great things for God, or those who admit their weakness, and you can plainly see that God is the force that moves them.

I talked to someone that told me that he believed that he had been called to be a great preacher in a worldwide ministry. I have heard that actually many times through the years. When this man told me this, the Holy Ghost hit me and I bore witness in the Spirit that this was true. God had called Him to preach. However, after talking to him for only a short time the Holy Ghost also bore a witness in my Spirit that unless something would change with this man, he might never accomplish anything for God. This is sad when this happens. If this man doesn’t step out and obey God, He not only will fail to accomplish anything, but sadly he will also grow to be a hindrance to those in his ministry who are obeying God. When we fail to obey God, then we often become a hindrance to those who are. What was this man’s problem? He failed to realize that when God calls us, this doesn’t mean that we are to wait until we are perfect to obey Him. We can’t wait until all the circumstances are perfect before we step out. We have to start when He calls us and obey Him by faith. If we never start, God can’t finish. He so reverenced what it was that God had called him to do that he felt like he couldn’t

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reach it. He told me how many years he had spent in preparation for starting to obey God. One of the things that he had done was to enroll in our college program to further prepare himself for the ministry. This was one of the things that he had done to prepare. He was always preparing, but never obeying. Many people enroll in our college program for the same reason. It is good to become educated in God’s Word. However, if we let it, getting an education comes as a crutch. We get an education instead of coming to God in obedience, stepping out in faith and doing what we are called to do. We go to college instead of going to God and obeying Him. If God has called you to go to college, then go. But never allow it to become a crutch. Sad to say, this young man has never started in his work for God. He forgot Who it was that had called Him. He had forgotten the pre-requisites for those that He calls. He had forgotten who it is that God calls. I can state that without a shadow of a doubt God has never called a perfect person, and if we wait until we are perfect, we will never accomplish anything for God. The people who accomplish things for God are those who are willing to see their weaknesses, commit them to God, and step out in faith to obey Him. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Face it. There is not anybody that is perfect. The only way that we can serve God is to get down on our knees and admit our weaknesses. If we do, then we can find the strength to do what we need to do. Paul, in the midst of his persecution and his weaknesses found this out. Jesus told him in II Corinthians 12:9-10 in one of the few red letter passages found between the Gospels and Revelations, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” We have to be weak to be used by the Lord. We have to put ourselves on hold and let the Holy Ghost in us rise up. He’ll get the job done. If we are trying to prove to God how special we can be, or if we are trying to prove to others that we can get the job done, then we will only wind up proving how foolish we are. If we, like the man mentioned earlier, wait to become someone special before we obey God, we will never get anything accomplished. I don’t write this book because I am perfect. I don’t write these books because I am a spiritual giant. I write the books that I have written because I get on my face before God and ask Him to pour it in so that I can pour it out. I become a vessel, empty to be used. You can’t be a vessel if you are full of a bunch of perfection that comes from yourself. There is a price to pay to be able to minister under an anointing. As you write or preach, or teach as the Holy Ghost leads you, he will be sure to wind up on your front porch knocking at your own door, as the old saying goes. I spend time on my face before God before and after I write a book. Before I write, I spend time on my face asking for Him to pour it in. I spend time on my

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face after I write because He has poured it in and what I have written has torn into my own soul. The Word of God is a sword that cuts to the marrow. If you preach or teach or carry the Word of God in any way under the anointing of the Lord, you can rest assured that you too will spend time on your face after God has used you to carry His Word. Just be sure that while that is happening the devil doesn’t come in and use this to condemn you to the place that you quit because you think that you are unworthy. You are right. You are unworthy. That really has nothing to do with it. If you are repenting and living upright before God, then obey Him even in your imperfections. Just remember God’s tool chest and that He has called you, not in your strength, but in your weakness. Obey God through faith in Him, not through faith in yourselves. Praise Him for His mercy in using you. Now I am not saying all of this so that someone can read this and take it as a cloak to sin. When I say weakness and imperfections, I do not in any way mean willful sin. We are to forsake sin and serve God with a whole and upright heart, walking in His righteousness. If we live a life full of sin, or if we harbor sin in our hearts, then we need to get real before we try to serve God. If we don’t then we will face His judgment.

Let’s get back to the story. What kind of an army did God use to deliver the city? Hey, no fair if you already know. In the middle of their despair God gave his prophet Elisha a message for the people. He told them in II Kings 7:1, “Then Elisha said, Hear ye the Word of the Lord; thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.” He told them that there would on the next day be such an abundance of food that it would be cheap. Now let’s review the situation that we read earlier in the chapter. Remember, dove’s dung was going for 5 pieces of silver. Talk about inflation. Elisha told them that God said tomorrow things were going to change. God was ready to send out his army to besiege the enemy that was besieging them. Now the great prophet Elisha was there on the scene. Just a few chapters before God had used him to smite the enemy with blindness so that they could flee. He had helped feed 100 prophets with a miracle from God. It is interesting that here in this situation God didn’t use Elisha. It is a wonderful message to all of us that He used who he did. It is a wonderful message to all of us who know our weaknesses and we tremble in our heart’s desire to be used by the Lord. We are afraid to step out in obedience and follow His leading because of our weaknesses and imperfections. Who did the Lord use? We find out in II Kings 7:3-4. “And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of they Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.” You can’t even really say that there was lot of faith or nobility in their motives. However, the words that they said echo down through time, and have been inspiration to more than one person or ministry who was tired

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of letting the devil besiege them. “Why sit we here until we die?” We have had many times in our ministry when God echoed these words in our hearts. During these times the devil had besieged us to make it seem like we couldn’t take the next step that God was requiring. We would step out in faith anyway remembering these words of the lepers. God would move to honor our faith, just like He moved that day. These 4 lepers had probably lived on the edge of despair for most of their adult lives, or longer. Do you know the place? That place where you have nothing to loose, so why not go all the way? While the rest of that huge city chose to starve to death there inside the gates, these lepers said something that will echo in your heart if you’ll let it. It will get you up, when you think that you can’t go on. When the enemy has closed in and you don’t even have strength to stand, and God is asking you to go on in and inhabit your promised land, let these words minister to you. “Why sit we here until we die?” When the next step takes faith and you know that if you don’t take it, it is the end of your vision, why sit we here? When you know that you are called for a purpose, but you are afraid to step out in faith, why sit we here? When you know the enemy has lifted a standard against you, and you are on your last leg, grab the blood stained banner of Jesus, and go into your enemies’ camp. Why sit we here until we die? Why sit we here until we die? Those lepers decided to go right into the enemies’ camp. When they got to the Syrian camp, nobody was at home. Nobody was there at all. The entire army was gone. The lepers probably had no idea of what had happened. Verse 6-7 tells us, “For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.” God had amplified the stumbling around of 4 half starved lepers to sound like a whole army. He had put fear into the enemies’ hearts. This fear was so great that we read later in the chapter that the left things around the countryside for miles. These were things that they had dropped in their haste to get away.

Can God use you to go into the enemies’ camp? Only if you know how little you are and how great He is. Only if you become like a little child and sit at His feet. Only if you love Him and desire just to be used because you love Him and you love His people. Only if you quit trying to prove what you can do and let Him prove what he can do in you. Only if you decrease so that He can increase. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” We can’t obey God and go into the enemies’ camps in our lives unless we know that it is not us, but Christ that dwells in us. Timothy was being trained by Paul in the ministry. II Timothy 1:7-14 tells us some of the words of wisdom that Paul gave him. The same Holy Ghost

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that anointed these words for Timothy can anoint them for you. Verse 9 tells us, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began…” We all have a holy calling to obey God. That is a calling that is not according to our own works, but according to His purpose and grace. That is how we will be able to obey God. Verse 12 tells us, “…For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” We have to commit these things to God and stand faithful that He is able to keep them. Hold fast to these things that the Holy Ghost has committed to you. Let the Holy Ghost anointing in you rise up to accomplish the thing that He is ordained and established there to accomplish through you. Read Ephesians 3:16- 21. Verse 20 tells us, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” If God tells you to go into the enemies’ camp, then go. Know that He will go with you. And that will be enough.

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Chapter 7. When You Dwell in The Enemies’ Camp

Lot

When I think of enemies’ camps in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah definitely come to my mind. They were cities so filled with the filth of the enemy that God destroyed them with fire. When you think of these places, you also have to consider both Abraham and Lot. You know the story. Abraham wound up on a mountaintop while Lot had to be rescued from the enemies’ camp of the city he had chosen to live in. What made a difference in the two? Have you ever studied out and contrasted the difference between Abraham and Lot? If you have, then just bear with me just a minute. Lot could easily have been the one on the mountaintop and Abraham in the city. Why wasn’t this so?

When we mention Abraham, we think of faith. He is listed in the Hebrews Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11:8-12. These verses talk about Abraham’s faith. We first read of that faith in Genesis 12:1-4. “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Verse 4 starts with the words, “So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him…” In this section of scripture, we see that God spoke to Abraham. Lot was there all along? Why did God not speak to Him? This makes you wonder about the relationship that Lot had with the Lord. It really doesn’t record anywhere in scripture that God talked to Lot. The angels came to Lot, for Abraham’s sake. However, God didn’t talk directly to Lot. To have faith we have to get close enough to God to be able to hear His voice. We also have to be obedient. Throughout the story of Lot, there are few times that we find Lot to be obedient. Compare the times that Abraham chose the right path in obedience to a direct leading of the Lord, to the times that you find Lot obeying a direct leading of the Lord. There is really no comparison.

We find in Genesis 12:4 that Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to Him. That was all that is mentioned. Here is a man that simply walked away from all he had there in that city to do what God told Him to do. There were no fleeces required, no great conversations with all his friends, not even a mention of what he had to give up to go. There was only a record of his obedience. It wasn’t until months later that God told him where he was to go. He left everything to go who knew where. We have to have a relationship with God to have that kind of obedience. Faith comes because we are trusting God to lead us. Lot was seemingly there just to follow Abraham around. The church world is full of Lots who really lack a heart deep relationship with God. When they need prayer, they go to the preacher, or to the preacher’s wife. When they need guidance, they go to their friends and family instead of going on their face before

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God. When they need deliverance or help, they must rely on others because they are too far from God to trust Him. If they need strength they steal it from others instead of finding it in the Holy Ghost for themselves. They ride the wagon, but can never be found pushing it. Lot seems to me to be one of these Christians. We have another way of saying it. Most churches have within them two churches. They have the carnal, flesh led church. They also have the church that is led by the Spirit of God. The carnal church is one like I described before. The Spiritual church is the true bride of Christ. They are the ones who are walking in the Spirit, and obedient to a tried and true relationship with the Lord. They are the ones who are committed, submitted, on fire, and walking in the Spirit. They are the movers and shakers of the church. They will be the obedient ones that you can count on. The other church, the Lot church, will be the ones that you will always have to rescue because they have done something, or gone somewhere that got them in trouble. Instead of being help, they are the ones who will often be a hindrance. Let’s move on to Genesis 13. In this chapter God has blessed Abraham so much that he and Lot could no longer stay together. In other words, “this country wasn’t big enough to hold both of them”. That was after Abraham left behind in Ur what he had to leave behind so that he could travel. He had been on the road for a long time, and still was blessed so much that the two of them couldn’t travel together. What a testimony to God’s blessings that He gives to the obedient. Abraham suggested that they split up. He let Lot pick first. Lot definitely didn’t prefer his uncle’s good above his own, even though he was there because of his uncle. He went immediately for what looked like the part that was the best. At least it looked like what was the best to carnal eyes. I believe that if Abraham had wanted that part, he would have spoken up. I think that it was Abraham’s Spirit led eyes that looked to the mountain and agreed with Lot’s choice. Lot right away moved down to the flat lands. Genesis 13:12 tells us something interesting about Lot. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” He pitched his tent toward the place that was later to become his enemies’ camp. In his carnality, he chose the world and was already headed toward it. At the time of Sodom’s destruction, where do we find Lot? He had not only moved into the city, but he was a leader in the city as well. He had started by pitching his tent toward the evil place, and wound up pitching in everything and becoming a part even to the place of becoming a leader. Now in his defense, the Bible does bear out that Lot was a righteous man. We read in II Peter 2:7 that God, “Delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)” What is hard to understand is that even though he was vexed with their conversations, why was he there? I know that if we allow him to, the devil will lead us to do the same. We will be living in an evil enemies’ camp and be vexed with the behavior of the enemy. We won’t be able to see that all we have to do is move. He will blind us from that simple fact just like he did Lot. You know that there were other places

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he could have lived. He could even have chosen to live at the foot of Abraham’s mountain. There he was right in the most evil of places. A place so evil that God destroyed it. There he was living in the middle of the enemies’ camp and calling it home.

When we choose to walk in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit of God, submissive and obedient to His leading, then we will ultimately wind up in the enemies’ camp. We may even get so used to it that we call it home. Throughout the story of Lot we read that he kept being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Abraham had to come more than once to his rescue. Many times Lot paid dearly for his wrong choices. Some of the saddest people are those that live like Lot and they think that they have arrived at all God has for them. When I read of Lot, I am reminded of a power packed Holy Ghost filled service that we had. We had an outpouring of a blessing that was wonderful. There should have been a huge crowd there to receive it, but there were only a few there. I asked God where all the people were that should have come. He reminded me that we live in an area where not everyone seeks after the Holy Ghost and His anointing. There are very few churches in our area that allow the Holy Ghost to move in their services. I am afraid that this is true in many areas. Sad to say, I am speaking about Pentecostal as well as nominal churches. There is a price to pay to have anointed services in your churches. One price is that the members have to walk in an obedient and genuine relationship with God twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They can’t just serve God on Sunday and expect God’s anointing to bless them then. I asked God why people missed this wonderful Holy Ghost blessed service in which He richly poured out His precious anointing. In answer to my question, God showed me a huge banquet table. It was filled with an amazing feast. We were seated at the table and feasting. Then He showed me people crawling around on the floor under the table. They looked like dogs, crawling around on all fours and picking up the crumbs that had fallen off of the table. They were showing these crumbs to one another and marveling about the wonderful feast that they had. They had no idea of the huge feast that was just over their heads. All they had to do was reach up, or stand up, but they wouldn’t. If they would only have reached up, then they too could have been filled. They were refusing to reach up for that feast, and that was why they weren’t there at that Holy Ghost filled service. God has promises and blessings of the Holy Ghost for us. He has promises that are ours if we just claim and lay hold of them. I for one want to get all that God has for me. No crawling under the table for me. I want to feast at the table that He gave His life to prepare for us. To be able to feast at that table, we have to be like Abraham, not like Lot. We have to be aware and open to the Spiritual things of God.

Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. He was checking out the world. The world is one of the biggest and the cruelest enemies’ camps that we can find ourselves in. I see so many young people who do the same thing. Well, sad to say, young and old do the same thing. They start out by just gazing at the world. Then

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they start to dress like it. Then they start acting like they are a part of it, even though they aren’t. Yet. Then even though they are still in church and are still serving God, they stop trying to witness to those that are around them, because they don’t want to be different. If you are afraid to witness to a crowd of people because you are different, then be assured that you are in the wrong crowd, and it is time to get out of it before it is too late. Then they start to choose friends with those who are worldly. From then on in they begin to compromise, and before long they are far from God that they don’t even wonder how they got there. Sin has destroyed their lives and the lives of those that love them. We don’t fall suddenly. We fall when we start pitching our tents toward Sodom. If you find that you have started on this journey, pick up your tent and run for the mountains. Find where you started compromising and go back where you belong.

We have established that Lot got Sodom. What did Abraham get? Abraham got something from God. We find out what in Genesis 13:14-17, “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eye, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” Abraham did it God’s way, and he wound up with it all and more. Lot settled for the crumbs while Abraham feasted at the banquet. From the day that Lot chose the city, his life was filled with strife. From the day that Abraham chose God’s way, his way was filled with the peace and the blessings of the Lord.

When we walk in the Spirit and we obey God in faith, it will not only leave a mark on our lives, but on our children’s lives, and their children, and their children as well. God made this statement about Abraham in Genesis 18:19, “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.” This was a key to Abraham receiving his promise. God knew that Abraham’s promise was directly linked to his ancestors. If Abraham couldn’t command his children and household after him in the ways of the Lord, then there would have been no use for God to bless His family. You see, God not only blessed Abraham, but his children, his children’s children and every generation of his family even until today. If Abraham hadn’t commanded his children, this could not have been so. This statement that God made came right after the statement in verse 18, “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” Now let’s read what mark Lot left on his children. When he went to his sons in law in Sodom to tell them to flee, that the city was being destroyed, what was their reaction? Genesis 19:14 tells us, “And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that

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mocked unto his sons in law.” For some reason they must have had little respect for him. He had no command over his household. Because of this, his sons in law perished. It is so important to live upright before our children and to command them in the things of the Lord. There are so many parents who have lost control of their own household. Their own children run their household, and the devil that uses them runs them. To have victory in your life you have to have command of your children. This takes time and it also takes effort. It also takes living an upright life before them. It also takes your staying far away from the enemies’ camps that the world offers. If you are so tangled up in the world that you don’t have any time left for God, then don’t be surprised when the same world that you are tangled in destroys your children.

One of the greatest testimonies of the power of a Godly life is the testimony of my great great grandmother. She raised her children in the fear of the Lord. She commanded her household in the things of the Lord. Not only did she do that, but she also took spiritual authority over the generations to come. My grandmother told us that she remembered her grandmother daily praying not only for her children, but also for their children’s children, and their children as well. Only her grandchildren had been born when she constantly and consistently prayed that prayer. She not only took authority for those that were born, but also for those that were not yet born. What an amazing prayer. I am a result of her prayers. Her daughter, my great grandmother, had 18 children. I never knew her, but I knew my grandfather and his faithfulness to the Lord, which was a testimony and a light to me. My mother served the Lord as well, and it was a commandment in our house that we learn the ways of the Lord. Now our generation is having children. They too are learning the ways of the Lord. What about those 18 children who were my grandfather’s siblings? Their generations are the same way. What a testimony as to what is accomplished when we command our children in the ways of the Lord. What a testimony of the power of prayer and a Spirit led obedient life lived before children.

I’m not sure what happened to Lot’s children. I do know that right after the destruction of Sodom his daughters got off to a very bad start. We again hear of his generations when God gives them land in Deuteronomy 2:9 and 19. This is good that it seems that the Lord took careful care to bless them. In Psalms 83:8, though they are mentioned again. “Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.” It almost sounds like in this section of scripture in its entirety here that these people were cursed because they helped the children of Lot. I am not exactly sure. In comparison, let’s consider the children who were the inheritance of Abraham. Jesus, Himself, was born of Abraham’s seed, and the whole world was blessed because of Abraham’s family. Also, the nation of Israel stands today as a testimony of Abraham’s family.

Carnality or walking in the Spirit, faith or unbelief, Abraham or Lot, which will you choose. Will you choose to overcome in victory, or will you choose to

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live in your enemies’ camp. These are the things that we can learn from the lives and the generations of Abraham and Lot.

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Chapter 8. When the Lord sends The Enemies’ Camp

Job

One of the hardest enemies’ camps that we can ever go to is the one in which God has put us. You might disagree with me here. Why would God put us in an enemies’ camp? Ask Job. In Job 1:6-12 we read that satan came before God’s throne and God bought up the subject of Job. In verse 8 he asked satan if he had considered his servant Job. Satan answered that it was easy for Job to serve God, because of the hedge that God had around him. God gave permission for the devil to try Job. He lowered the hedge so that the devil could get to Job. We read, though, that God didn’t give the devil free reign. He was limited in what he could do. We read throughout the scriptures that God will try our hearts. David wrote in Psalms 26:2, “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.” Jeremiah 9:7 tells us, “Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them: for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?” Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” God will put us through the fire. For one reason, He will use the fire to purify us. Zechariah 13:9 says, “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” Malachi 3:3 tells us, “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” When we are purified and tried in the fire of the Lord, then all our impurities are burned away. Then He will bless us and use us. Then He will restore what was stolen from us while the fire was hot. He’ll try us and take us to that potter’s wheel told about in Jeremiah 18:2-4. “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” God is the best potter that you will find. He will mold and remake you so that you will be a vessel that is fit to use in the house of God. Then He can anoint you. One of the things that He will use to mold us is the enemy himself. God will, like He did to Job, allow satan to buffet and fire you in his fire. Then you will come out like gold.

God can’t anoint us until we have been tried. When we have been tried in His furnace, then He knows that we will hold against the battle of satan. He knows what we are made of. He won’t waste an anointing on a novice that hasn’t been through the fire. Only when he knows that you will stand will you be given an anointing. We live in a church world today that preaches that we shouldn’t have to

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go through anything. The idea that God would actually allow satan to come against us is foreign. Then when the devil comes against them, they either become condemned or think that they aren’t saved, or they run away and hide. We have an enemy and he will especially try to destroy those who are called for a purpose. We also have to understand that God will allow us to be tried so that He can do His perfect work in us. If you study the scriptures, before every resurrection, there was a Calvary. Before every great victory there came a time of trials when that person was made to shine like gold. Before every great victory was a time when the Lord made sure that they would stand through it all. Believe it or not, sometimes it is harder to rise up in great victory than it is to go through a trial. When God lifts you up, there will be all kinds of things that you will have in your face that if you aren’t ready, they can cause you to fall away quicker than the battle can. God won’t lift up novices that aren’t ready. If He did it could destroy them. Rather He works on them getting them ready for years. One example is the life of Moses. God worked in his life for more than 40 years. When God is getting ready to use you, He will fire you in His furnace so that you will stand. Praise God for His fire. Praise God when He allows you to go to the enemies' camp and there He purifies and molds you.

How do we react when we are in that place and we know that we are there because God has allowed it? It was hard for me to realize that God would do this the first time that it happened to me. At first I was angry with God. It felt like I had been abandoned. I was about to explode from the pressure of the battle and I knew that God could fix in all in an instance. But He wouldn’t. He let me get worn all the way down before He stepped in. When He did, He gave me a song. There’s A Blessing In this Trial. Here are the words of that song.

The Blessing in This Trial Verse 1 I went through a valley so low I could not see the mountain. It seemed the victory was somewhere out of reach. I asked God could you make it all better please. He answered me with Words that brought me peace. Chorus Child there’s a blessing in this trial just you wait and see. I’ll do miracles for you just wait from Me. You may not understand how My hand is working. If you hold on soon you’ll be—reaping my blessings. Verse 2 On the other side of that trial that had brought me to my knees. I saw what wonders God had worked in me. I new heart a brand new strength, a greater faith and peace. I praised God for that miracle that trial had worked in me.

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We want it all to be instant and easy. It doesn’t happen that way and we get mad and quit. We need to get committed to the place that we can praise God for the trials and for the miracles that they work in us. We read in I Peter 4:12-13, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

One of the most profound scriptures that I have read concerning times when God is trying you and allowing you to go through the fire before He uses you is found in Exodus 4:24. “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him (Moses), and sought to kill him.” Have you ever wondered just what in the world that this scripture was talking about? It can only mean one thing. God tried to kill Moses. Moses hadn’t done anything to bring God’s wrath upon himself. Matter of fact, he was stepping out in faith to do a task that he believed to be impossible. But in faith, he was obeying God. What was going on here? The scripture bears out over and over the fact that when someone is called for a supernatural task, then God will put them through the fire. We’ve already established that. Moses in a few short days was going to see some very scary things that God was going to use him to do. Exodus 7:1 says, “And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron they brother shall be thy prophet.” God actually let Moses have some of the attributes that He had as God. Moses would take a rod and smite the river and watch the water turn to blood. He would hold out his rod and bring a plague of frogs, and then cause them to die. He would be used by God to bring many plagues, including the death of the Egyptian children. He would stretch out his rod, and the sea would part returning to its banks to destroy their enemy. God knew the tremendous power that Moses would see. God would perform mighty things through Moses’ hands. If Moses wasn’t ready and baked in the fire, God knew that all these things would surely cause him to fall. If he wasn’t ready, and tried in the fire, it could actually destroy him. God had to know that Moses was ready. God needed someone that He knew He could count on. On the edge of Egypt, He literally tried to destroy Moses. Moses stood firm. God knew that He had His man. Moses did not fail in his task. I am not sure that Job was tried in the fire because God was getting ready to use Him to do something supernatural. I think that God allowed satan to try Job because of Job’s faithfulness. On the other hand, God certainly used Job in a tremendous way. How many times has the story of Job strengthened and blessed you all these years later. Down through time it has done the same. I am sure that Job missed his original family and the things that he had before he was tried. I believe though that what God blessed Him with after the trial was so wonderful that it more than made up for what he had lost. God will never take something that He doesn’t return better for. He will even bless it to a hundredfold. When you know that your heart is upright and that you are prayed through in your relationship with God, and you have bound the devil and take authority over him,

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then stand ye therefore. You may be in one of God’s furnaces. Stand true. You have a blessing on the way. The enemies’ camp will yield up the spoils of Egypt and you will be blessed.

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Chapter 9. When We Ourselves Become The Enemies’ Camp

Saul-Paul

To learn more about Saul, let’s hear his story from one of his own sermons found in Acts Chapter 22. He was a Jew as he himself stated in verse 3. He was very zealous toward God. He was so zealous in his faith that he tells us in verse 4, “And I persecuted this way unto, binding, and delivering into prisons both men and women.” It takes a lot of zeal to kill people or deliver them to the death for the sake of your beliefs. This zeal to serve God was to an extreme for Saul. Saul in his own eyes was doing what he thought God wanted him to do. However, in his zeal to do for God, he himself became an enemy to God and to God’s people. He himself became an enemies’ camp.

How did this happen? In Acts 22:8 we see the first time that it was recorded that Jesus spoke to Saul. Somehow I believe that this was the first time that either God or Jesus had spoken to Saul. Why? Because to get him to hear him, Jesus had to send a blinding light, speak out loud, and blind him for so many days. It took all of these to get his attention. Paul was busy going about doing his own thing in his own zeal. He was doing what he thought God wanted him to do, but he didn’t know God enough to know what He wanted him to do. Saul didn’t have a real relationship with God, just zeal to do something for Him. Believe me, there is a major difference in the two. It took all the above to bring Saul to the place where he could hear these words that God spoke to Ananias in Acts 9:15-17. Saul was called for a purpose. I have watched so many people who received a calling to go out and do just like Saul. No, I don’t mean that they went around killing people physically in their zeal, but they actually killed people spiritually, which is far, far worse. How? Instead of growing in a walking, talking and hearing, obedient relationship with God, they ran out to do their own things. They were very zealous to do something for God, but they did it all wrong. Flesh won’t get the job done. The flesh does more damage than good. Romans 8 tells us what dangers carnality has. Let’s sum that passage up by quoting verses 5 and 6. “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” We can have no confidence in our abilities in the flesh. I don’t care how great that we think we are. We can’t serve God in the flesh. If we try, we will wind up being just like Saul. We ourselves will become the enemies’ camp.

Let me give you an example. An entire family was saved in a church service. They hadn’t been to church since the parents were children. The daughter was a young unwed mother. Before they got out of the church, a well meaning flesh led group of older ladies met with the daughter and told her that they wanted to be sure that she knew that her baby was of the devil. This was apparently because it was born out of wedlock. This tore that entire family to pieces. Thank

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God that they had more of a Spirit led walk than these women who had been to church for years. This family prayed through, forgave these people, and returned to church to make it their home. Another example comes from my own life. I backed up on God during my college days. I hit the world wide open and sinned in every way that I could find to sin. (By the way, God has showed me that if I had died during those days of sinning when I had turned my back on God, I would have definitely gone to hell. And yes, I had been a born again, sold out Christian as a younger person. Through His mercies, he kept me alive to the time when I was serving Him once again. During those last years, I edged death many times, but He kept me. That explains my view of what is called “eternal security”. I just threw that in for extra measure.) Back to the subject at hand. During my lost years, I wrecked my life totally in a few short years. I had little practice at being a sinner and I wasn’t very good at it. This kind of people gets into more trouble than people who have sinned for years. I reached out to other Christians, but they couldn’t see me reaching out. They weren’t walking in the Spirit. I wound up having many scars from the people that I reached out to. Many of these people pushed me further away from God. Sad to say, how many people say that they won’t serve God because of how they were hurt in church or by church people. Still that is no excuse for not serving God. I was hurt, but came back and served God anyway. If you talk to people outside of the church, you won’t have to talk long before you find someone with such a story. Some of them will tear your heart out. Flesh will not get the job done. It will only destroy people. No matter how well meaning that flesh is in what it does it will only fail. In our zeal when we are doing things on our own and in the flesh, we are not committed, submitted, and listening to God. We will become an enemy ourselves. The saddest people are those who with all their heart try on their own to do something for God, but everything is back firing because they are in the flesh. Eventually they give up on their vision, and their vision may have been from God all along. They were just going about it all wrong. Saul was called. While he was killing Christians in God’s name, he was still called. He just had to get turned around and do it God’s way. After his earth shaking conversion, Saul decided to listen to God and do it His way. Galatians 1:11-24 tells us what he did next in his own words. Read this section of scripture. In summary, he didn’t listen to flesh after that. He didn’t listen to his own flesh, or the flesh of those around him. Verse 16 tells us, “…that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” He went to seek the Lord. After three years he sought out Peter and abode with him. I think that this was to seek counsel with the others to confirm what he had received from God. Notice though that his time seeking counsel with God was three years, and his time with Peter was only fifteen days. Then we read in verse 24 that when he joined the rest of the household of faith, “And they glorified God in me.” They glorified God for what He had done in Paul. I’m not saying that if God calls you, you need to go to the mountains and not speak to anyone for three year. I am saying that we need to start our ministry by getting on our face before

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God. Then we rise up to say what He wants said, and do what He wants us to do, and go where He says. We have to decrease so that He can increase. We have to get filled up with the Holy Ghost, and then we can do something for Him in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Then we can do something for Him in the power and demonstration of His anointing.

In Acts 9:17, Paul received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. He was already converted on his way to Damascus, but in verse 17 we read, “…Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, (Ananias) that you mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.” We read in verse 18 that after his sight was restored, “He received sight forth with, and arose, and was baptized.” This does not mention water. This did not mean that he was baptized with water. This means that the thing that Ananias said he had come for was done. Paul received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. How do we know that he received it? Because his letters are filled with teaching about it and how important it is. When we are filled or Baptized with the Holy Ghost, then we can overcome our flesh and walk in the Spirit. For more about the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the last of this chapter is dedicated to that wonderful gift that God has for us all. Paul said a mouthful when he recorded in Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” We can have no confidence in our flesh. We read in I Corinthians 1:29, “That no flesh should glory in His presence.” We can’t walk this thing on our own. That is why God sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in us to help us from the inside out. We don’t know how to serve him. We can’t even worship Him without getting out of the flesh and into the Spirit. John 4:24 tells us in Jesus’ own words, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” We can’t even understand Him in the natural, because He is a supernatural God. We can’t love Him with our human heart that is so full of scars. We have to go through the Holy Ghost to even be able to comprehend His love for us. Indeed the Holy Ghost is the one who draws us to come to God in the first place. What are we in the flesh? Nothing. What are we in the Spirit? The sons of God. Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

Some of you when you read this chapter may think that I wrote this just for preachers who have a calling on their life. Indeed you may have thought this when you read some of the earlier chapters. You might have thought that some of this book was just dedicated to those who were called to some type of ministry. Here is something for you to think about. The Great Commission in which Jesus told us to “go ye” wasn’t called great because it was just for a handful of elite Christians. It was called great because it was for all of us. Here’s a survey for you. If you can answer yes to all of these statements, then you are off the hook as far as having to go out and minister in some way to those around you. Here are the statements:

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1.All of my family is saved and serving the Lord. 2.All of my neighbors are saved and serving the Lord. 3. All of my coworkers are saved and serving the Lord. 4. I do not know anyone who is going through a heart breaking time who needs comfort that can only come from the Lord. 5. I am sure that the people in my church do not need my help in any way. 6.I am sure that those people that I meet throughout my day to day schedule do not need any one to listen to or minister to them in any way. 7. There is not anyone I know who needs me to carry Jesus to them in any way. If you answered yes to these, then OK. Are you off the hook? Do you understand now what I am saying? We are all called in some way to minister to someone. We all have a “mission field” of our own. We may be the only people who can minister to some of those around us. Even if it is just around us, we need to minister. If all of us took that view, our churches would be full and we’d change our whole world. How do we do it? Get close enough to Jesus so that He splashes out on those around us. Get filled up with the Holy Ghost, like Paul, so that it isn’t your flesh that is reaching out, but it is the Holy Ghost. Get committed and submitted and be led by the Spirit. If you want to know more about how to do all this, study Paul’s letters. He certainly learned how. After all, he once was an enemies’ camp to God’s people, all by himself.

I am closing this chapter with an excerpt from my book, Walking in the Spirit, about the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. This plus his conversion was what changed Saul from being the enemies’ camp to being the powerhouse for God that he became. That is what the Baptism of God’s Spirit is all about. Here is what God has to say about it in His Word. We first read about it in Acts Chapter 2. Here we read that the disciples were all gathered in one mind and accord. In verse 4 it tells us, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” What was the outcome of this? These few who were hiding in fear after the crucifixion, became bold enough and so full of God’s Spirit that they turned the world upside down. Without the Baptism, they would not have endured to start the church, and keep the Gospel that was committed to us today. Verse 41 tells of the outcome of that day, “Then they that gladly received His word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” This didn’t stop here. We read about this throughout Acts. In Chapter 8, verses 14-17, these men received the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In Chapter 10, verses 44-48, the Holy Ghost is again on the scene filling the Gentiles. In Acts19:1-6, these men also received the gift of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Paul asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost since they had believed. These men were already saved, but they had something in addition to salvation that they were about to receive. They answered, “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” In verse 6 the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues and prophesied. I think of myself when I read their answer to Paul, “We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy

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Ghost.” I hadn’t heard, but God found me anyway. How do you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost? I was blessed to find a church that believed this way. The congregation laid hands on me and prayed for me in the same way that Paul laid hands on the men in Acts 19:6. But I still didn’t receive it that night that they prayed. Several nights later, when I was by myself, the Holy Ghost fell on me and I was filled. I prayed in tongues for the first time that night. You can receive it through the prayers of others, or you can receive it through your own prayers. It is a gift of God that He has given us to empower us against the battle of satan. It is a gift that gives us boldness in our witness, like it did those on that first day. It is for you. I have heard many people argue against the Baptism of the Holy Ghost being real. They argue that it is not for us today. When I hear this I know several things about those people. I know that they are ignorant of God’s Word. In Acts 2:38-39 we read, “Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” I would say that means us too. I also know when I hear people argue that the Baptism is not for us today, that these people do not know God. I know that He wants the best for His children. He wants us to overcome and be victorious. I also know that we live in the last days, which has to be one of the hardest times to live on the earth. Why would God give a gift to help the early disciples, tell us about it, and then deny us the right to have it or make it so that it is not available to us who need it the most? That is not the God I know.

I think that one of the things that hinders people in receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is that it comes along with the gift of speaking in tongues. For many, that is a stumbling block. This is because the devil wants to scare people away from our being able to pray in the Spirit, or pray in tongues. What it means when we pray in tongues is that the Spirit of God prays through us in His own language. He is praying directly through us using our vocal chords. We may not understand what He is saying, though sometimes He will allow either us or others to interpret. Whether or not we understand, the devil knows when we start praying that something is being done to bind him and to loose the power of God on the scene. No wonder he works overtime to confuse people about this powerful gift. Have you ever wanted so badly to pray for someone but didn’t know how to pray? All you could do was to say a general half way prayer, when you know you needed to do more. The Holy Ghost knows exactly how to pray in God’s perfect will. When He prays through you that is a powerful prayer that will get the job done. Also, when we pray in the Holy Ghost it strengthens our inner man, Who is the Spirit of God in us. Jude 20, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.” When we are filled and consumed with the Spirit of God, and we allow Him to pray in us, we are submitted to His Spirit in a way that nothing else can do. We strengthen His Spirit in us. We submit our flesh and our flesh man takes second place in our life. With all of that going

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on, our flesh doesn’t stand a chance. God’s Spirit rises strong in us and we take on His likeness.

Now you may interrupt me here to say, what about the people who receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and wind up turning their back on God, or they sin in a big way and take on a life of sin instead of a life with God? Just because you have the Baptism of the Holy Ghost it doesn’t make you perfect. You still have your flesh man. If you have the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost is still not allowed to control your life, then flesh will. That is why it is important to allow the Holy Ghost to move in you. Pray in the Holy Ghost daily. Don’t hinder the Spirit of God when He starts to move in or through you, whether it be in church or at home. Allow God’s Spirit to control. Then He will be there when you need Him. One of the greatest stories I have ever heard about the power in the prayer of the Holy Ghost is this. The Holy Ghost moved on a man and began interceding through him. The man had no idea why, but he obeyed and yielded. God spoke to him to take note at what time this had happened. The next day he heard about a close friend who had been stabbed. That had happened at exactly the time that the man had prayed. The other man’s life had been miraculously spared. Another time I heard about a man on a plane who had interceded through the Holy Ghost. After they landed, they were told of a mechanical failure that had nearly caused them to crash, but miraculously the failure had corrected itself. The man who had prayed had no idea, but God knew. Thousands of times I have heard stories about how the Holy Ghost had interceded by speaking in tongues through those who had the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. The situation was corrected, the life was saved, the soul was saved, the person was delivered, or whatever need there was, it was met. There is no prayer that is more powerful than the prayer of the Holy Ghost Himself. If you do not have the gift of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, ask God for this. Seek it. The Bible says that when we seek God, or His gifts, we will find them. Who says so? Jesus. Luke 11:9, “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Read this section of scripture through verse 13. In verse 13 we read, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”

Paul knew what it was like to literally become the enemies’ camp to hundreds of people. He also knew what it was like to be used by the hand of God to turn his world upside down. We have most of the New Testament, thanks to his conversion. Thank God for His mercy. Thank God for His mighty Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

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Chapter 10. When the Enemies’ Camp Is Your Promised Land

Joshua When the enemies’ camp is your promised land you must go ahead and

possess your land. I am going to switch the format of the chapter a little from the rest of the book. In this chapter I will give an outline of the things that Joshua and the children of Israel did to be able to possess their promised land, when it was an enemies’ camp. Let’s pick up on their story in Numbers 13. They had first arrived at their promised land in this chapter. I am not sure how long it had been since they had left Egypt. I do know, though, that it had not been 40 years as you might suppose. I’ll tell you how I know this in just a bit.

You know the story of Joshua and Caleb and the 12 spies of Israel. They went into the Promised Land and scoped out the land. They came back to report to Moses and the children of Israel. You’ll find their report and its consequences in Numbers chapters 13 and 14. In Numbers 13:27 they told of the land flowing with milk and honey, which was exactly what God had promised them. However, there was a problem that we read about in verse 28. “Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land and the cities are walled and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.” They went on from there not only to list all of the problem people that they saw in the land, but also the problem people that were surrounding the land on all its borders. Caleb then spoke up with the Spirit led voice of faith in verse 30. He said, “…Let us go up at once, and possess it: for we are well able to overcome it.” But the flesh voice of doubt took over in verse 31-32. “But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.” Here on the edge of their promised land, there was a mighty battle between the Spirit led voice of faith and the flesh led voice of doubt. Flesh won. Read chapter 14 to see the results. It starts with verse 1. “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.” First the people murmured against Moses and Aaron. It went from there to their murmuring against God. Now remember, these people had not so long before this seen the sea split. They had walked across on dry land. Then they had watched their enemy be destroyed without their having to lift a hand. What were they thinking here? Verses 28-34 tell of the outcome of all this. They were sentenced because of their doubt to 40 years of wandering in the desert. Those that were there then were never allowed to enter into the Promised Land, except for Joshua and Caleb. Had Moses not disobeyed God later on then he would have been allowed to enter.

Our ministry is standing on the edge of a promised land. We went through a time when flesh and Spirit battled for control and satan clearly was on the side of the flesh. We had two groups in our church. We had a flesh church and we had a

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Spirit led church. Your church is probably the same. Which church are you standing with-the Joshua and Caleb church, or the other one? God had given us a vision for our ministry. We were standing at the edge of possessing this vision. Praise God for the leadership in our ministry that refused to let the flesh church reign. The result? The flesh church walked out leaving barely a handful of people who were left standing true to the vision God had given us. This was what was left of a fairly large congregation. It has been only a few years ago that this happened. Since then, God has blessed us tremendously, and He has only started. Since that time we bought and miraculously paid for two radio stations. We are putting together equipment to begin a live recording studio, and a TV station. Our food program is expanding. Our school program went international. We added a college program, which has gone international. We have accomplished all this with the handful of people plus a few more that God added. Have we regretted that time when we stood at our promised land and God said to go on in and the rest turned around and left? It really hurt. The battle has been rough. Sometimes we are working until 10:00, 11:00 or later at night. God gives us supernatural strength to be able to do what we do. We are possessing our promised land. It has been a war every step of the way. Praise God, we see the beginning of the victory. It has been worth it over and over and over again.

Let’s skip ahead forty years in our story about Joshua and Caleb. This next generation was younger, but a whole lot wiser than the old one. They had definitely learned from the mistakes of their parents. Let’s follow them as they enter into their promised land, and from them we can learn some steps that we can use to possess our own promised land. Your promised land may be a vision that God has given. Or it might be promises for you family, or your children, or a financial miracle. It might even be a complete turn around for your life. You can know surely that whatever your promised land is, that it will become an enemies’ camp. The devil will camp around the thing that has been promised to make it seem like it is impossible, so that you give up. He will fight you tooth and nail to discourage you to get you to turn around before you can possess your land. Down through the years, we have watched the devil actually confirm God’s promises. When the battle is the hottest, we know that we are in the center of God’s will. There will be an enemies’ camp at your promised land. How you deal with this is up to you. Will you possess your land?

The rest of our story is found in the book of Joshua chapter 3. Israel is ready to move into their promised land. Verse 2-3 tells us, “And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host; and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it.” They took three days to get prepared to go in. They set themselves aside, and sanctified themselves to go into their land. I don’t believe that it was an accident that they were to wait three days. This is the same number of days that Jesus took to return after his death. With God, timing is everything. If you want to

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accomplish anything for the Lord, you have to learn this. We can’t time things on our own. We have to be led by the perfect timing of God. You may have wandered around your promised land for years because it just wasn’t time to go in yet. God has the art of timing down to a supernatural process. When it is time, it will work. When it isn’t, it won’t work. You just have to keep the faith and a right attitude until it is time.

The next step is found in verse 3. The ark of the covenant went first carried by those who were set aside to bear it. Everybody else followed it. If you want to go into your promised land, you have to remember the covenant, the promises that God has given you. You also have to remember that it is a holy thing that you are about to do. You have to remember that those who are set aside to carry the holy things of God are to go first. Everyone else is to follow. There was no confusion caused because they had mixed with the inhabitants of the land so much that they forgot what was holy. Believe me they lost many battles later on because of this. Today they knew what was holy and they followed it. They had sanctified people going before them leading them. The faces of everyone there was on the holy things of God. These things were the priority. Verse 4 closes with the statement, “…that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” They knew which way to go because those who were set aside for God were carrying the holy things of God. If you want to individually possess your promised land, then you have to come apart from the world and be a separate people. You have to set aside yourself for the Lord. You have to focus on God, and get your priorities right before you can go into the enemies’ camp and possess your promised land. God is a holy God. If you want Him to be on your side, then you have to come out of the world and get on His side. You can’t hang onto the world’s ways, and have God too. You don’t want to walk into the enemies’ camp unless you know that God is walking with you.

As a church, for you to inhabit your promised land, the vision that God has given you, then you have to do the same. (If you are a church or a leader in some way in a church, and you lack a vision of a promised land, then you need to go back to God’s Word and you need to renew your relationship with God. You are becoming blinded by compromise and you may not even realize it.) To be able to inhabit our promised land, we have to set ourselves aside as leaders and as a congregation. We have to be a Spirit led, Spirit walking people because flesh won’t stand in the enemies’ camp. Flesh won’t even go there. Flesh won’t even see the promise, let alone the promised land. All too often the thinking of flesh and the world takes over the church instead of the Word of God rising up from the church and changing its world. We need to consecrate ourselves to carry the promises of God, His Word, and His Holy Ghost so that we can lead or our people won’t know which way to go. The people in Joshua’s day didn’t know the way. It didn’t matter. There were those set aside by God to lead. They were set aside to carry the Holy things of God and they led. What a message not only to pastors, but to every person who is in any position of leadership in the church. It is also a

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message to those on the pew. If those in leadership in your church are following the Spirit of God, then go in the same direction that they are going. Lift up their arms and be a support in whatever way that you can. There are special promises for those that lift up anointed leaders. If those in leadership in your church are not set aside, and they are not carrying the holy things of God in obedience to His Holy Ghost, then you need to get out. Ask God for His direction. If He tells you to leave don’t tarry for any reason. Don’t stay and let your spirit die.

In verse 5 all the people sanctified themselves. Sanctify means to purify your heart before God and make sure that you have repented before God for all your sins. This is a work that God does in us. We have to start it, but He has to finish it. Several years ago it was a prevalent teaching in the church that God sanctified us in one definite act of grace similar to the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. I have found through my years of serving Him that He does this every day, day in and day out. I always find something that I am falling short in that needs His polishing and refining in my life and heart. Every day, He works in me to bring things to light that need to be brought to light, delivering and healing and working a work in me. Every time I read His Word or hear anointed messages, His Word acts as a sword that cuts down to the very marrow of who I am. Where would we be without this work that constantly works for us?

In Joshua 3 verse 6 we find something that will preach, as the old saying goes. You will notice that the people followed the ark. The ark didn’t follow the people. “And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the Ark of the Covenant, and went before the people.” God’s holiness, His righteousness, His covenant, His Word, his Holy Spirit have to lead. Not the people. If we want to inhabit our promised land then this has to be so. We have to submit and commit so that we can be led. We also see that their leaders had favor with God. The people submitted to their leadership. This is important when you are ready to go into your enemies’ camp.

In Joshua 3:7 God spoke to Joshua personally and renews His promise to him. “And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” How sweet are the promises that God speaks personally to us. It gives us strength to overcome. It gives us strength to go in and possess our land. In Joshua 3:8, they came to their first barrier, the river Jordan. They didn’t stop to measure how deep the water was, or to consider what they needed to do. They didn’t hold a board meeting and talk themselves out of going on in. They went in by faith. They went in by faith and then stopped to listen for God’s directions. They listened for God’s Word with no other thought than obeying it. God honored this. They walked on dry land.

In verse 13 those who were set aside for God’s work went in first. There will be some who will totally dedicate themselves to following God. God will work mightily in their behalf to honor their obedience. There will be some that He

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will call. If they obey Him and set themselves aside for His service He will honor that commitment. God honors and blesses what we give, and what we set aside for Him of ourselves.

After they passed on through the Jordan they set up 12 stones as a monument, one from every tribe. This was to remind themselves, their children, and their children’s children of what God had done for them that day. They were ready to face the giants in the land. God acted mightily on their behalf. Their faith was strong, and they were ready to possess the land. That was the beginning. Read in the rest of the book of Joshua how God did miracle upon miracle for them. In a lot less time than it took their parents to wander around in the desert in unbelief, they possessed their land. You can take your promised land no matter how big the giants are or how great the enemies’ camp is that is camped there. Whatever those promises are that God has spoken to your heart, that is your promised land. If you will obey God’s Word and walk in His Spirit, your promised land is as assuredly yours. As sure as the nation of Israel belongs to the Jews today. Go and possess your land.

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Chapter 11. What Has Happened to Our Children

The Children of Israel

The children of Israel conquered their promised land. We read about this in Judges 1. They overcame the giants and the enemy that was there in their land. It no longer was an enemies’ camp. If you read on in their story starting at Judges 1:27, there are some words that literally jump up off the page. That is the repetition of the word neither. If you read that verse, you’ll find out that the neithers and the nors take over. There was definitely disobedience going on that cost them dearly. Judges 1:1-26 tells us how they inhabited their land. Constantly through these verses we read the phrase, “And the Lord was with them”. We finish up that chapter in verses 27-36 reading how they disobeyed God. What did they do? Let’s read God’s rebuke that He gave them in Judges 2:1-3, “And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?” Verse 2 sums it up. God had told them to drive out the enemies. He had told them not to make a league with them. Now mind you, this was the same enemy that their parents had considered and turned away from in fear on their first trip to the promised land. Here they were making a league with them, becoming a part of them. In doing so they disobeyed God. God knew what was ahead of them. This was the beginning of a problem that still hinders the nation of Israel even today. Look at the price that they have paid through history, years of violence from these nations around them. The people wept and repented in verse 4. They returned to serve the Lord all the rest of the days of Joshua. We see a problem though in Judges 2:10-12. It is summed up in verse 11, “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim.” They did OK as long as their leader was strong. As soon as Joshua died, things went haywire once more.

If we disobey God and compromise with the enemy, then we will not only pay a price, but so will our children. Those that love us will pay a price as well. When we fail God, we never do it to ourselves, but we bring sorrow to everyone around us. I work with a Christian School. Everyday I speak to well-meaning parents who love their children. They sit there and shake their heads and wonder what has happened to their children. It doesn’t take long for me to see areas in their own lives where they have compromised with the enemy. It is little wonder that the enemy has taken over the hearts of their children. Their children had no foundation because their parents failed to live a life before them that demonstrated the ways of God and the principles of God’s Word. It is hard enough for young people who have a strong foundation. When we compromise with the enemy we shouldn’t be surprised when he comes in and steals our own children.

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Now I know that there are some dedicated sold out parents whose children have battles. This may be because the parents are doing something right and they have the enemies’ attention. The number one place that the devil will attack someone is by attacking their children. If you have built a strong foundation for them, if you have known God’s works and you have taught them to your children, then their foundation will stand no matter what the devil does. Proverbs 22:6 tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Because of the disobedience of the parents, their children were put in danger. Not only their lives, but also their souls were in danger as well. Their children turned to these false gods of these people that they were supposed to have driven out of their midst. Judges 2:13-14 tells us that God’s anger was kindled against them. The enemy can make your own home to be an enemies’ camp. This can happen because of your obedience. It may happen because you fail to walk in the Spirit and identify the enemy. It is easy to compromise with the enemy because we don’t want to make the effort to see that he doesn’t rule our household. Sometimes I wonder where parents are. They allow their children to make up their own rules. The children come home with all the latest fads-5 ear rings in each eyebrow and one in their tongue, and the parents just shrug their shoulder. The kids come home all dressed in black and the parents aren’t even connected enough to know how dangerous this thing is that their children are getting into. They just shrug their shoulders about today’s styles and fads. The kids start plugging themselves into the music that comes straight from hell and they shake their heads and talk about how it was so different in their day. All these things are evidences that the devil has camped against our children and he is about to make your home into an enemies' camp. If you aren’t walking in the Spirit then you won’t see these things. The devil is after your children. I have been in teaching for 20 years and in education all of my life. What time I wasn’t in school, I was going to school, or teaching. I have never seen the devil attack young people more than he is right now. Maybe it is because this group of young people has such a weak foundation. I wonder though if it isn’t also the fact that these young people may be the last day’s generation. They may be the last generation before the Lord comes back. The reason why they are under such an attack may be that they are a special generation. We need to hold on to them. We need to guard them spiritually. We need to teach them the ways of God. The only way that we can do that is if we walk upright before them in obedience to God. We have to obey God and drive the enemy out of our camp. Then when we inherit our promised land, our children will do so as well.

As I mentioned before, these things may happen because you are doing something right and the devil is coming against your household. If this is the case stand strong, and hold onto the Lord. Let Him have your children. He knows how to keep them. They are part of your promised land.

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Chapter 12. When It Seems Nobody Is Listening

At first you might not understand just what this particular person has to do with an enemies’ camp. Bear with me a little, and you’ll see. I am going to first introduce this person by telling some of his qualifications. I want to see if you can guess who the star of this chapter is. Here are some things about him. 1. Other than those close to him, not one person agreed with his ministry. 2. He preached the most unpopular message of his generation and to most people it wasn’t even reality. 3. He was probably one of the most mocked preachers that ever lived. 4. He was given an impossible job to do as a minister. Before he even started God knew that he was going to fail as far as the message that he preached. God told him to preach anyway. 5. It didn’t matter in one respect whether or not he preached. His message wasn’t heard or heeded. However, he carried a most valuable message that would affect the entire world. 6. He did not have one single convert except for his immediate family. 7. The main impact of his ministry came because of what many might call his failure at preaching. 8. He had not one convert but he stayed faithful to his task and we are here today because of his faithfulness.

If you have yet to figure out who this was, or even if you have, before I tell you who it is I want you to think about the last time that you were discouraged because it seemed that nobody heard your message. I’m not just talking to preachers here. I’m not necessarily a preacher, but every day I preach a message of some sort to those around me. I preach some to my family, some to friends, some to others that I love. I preach some to strangers that I don’t even know, who may see Jesus in my life. It is very disheartening when it seems like nobody hears you, especially when the ones that you are trying to reach are the ones that you love. Even at your most discouraging times when the devil is perched right on your shoulder whispering in your ear to tell you that it is pointless to keep on with what you are saying, we need to keep on. When it seems that there is no point to carry the message of salvation, sanctification, deliverance, and a walk with God, just like this man continued to preach, we need to continue. What this man went through in his ministry is far worse than what you have experienced in your most discouraging times. Can you imagine the hopelessness of the situation that we described before. Still this man preached on. He preached for over 100 years without one single convert other than his own family.

Can you guess by now? This man was Noah. Just think for a minute. If Noah had gotten discouraged because nobody listened, where would we be today? I guess that it is very safe to say that we wouldn’t be here at all. What if those who mocked him would have turned him around? What if he would have been

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consumed by the evil of his day and had compromised? What an awesome ministry, to have the responsibility of saving mankind. God knew when he told Noah to preach that nobody would hear him. That is why during that 100 years or so that he had him to work on the ark. From the first time that God told Him to preach, He told Noah that He would have to build the ark. When he started, I believe that Noah knew the outcome. Still he preached with all his heart in the hopes that someone would hear. I bet more than one young and rash preacher has thought, “Boy, if I would have been Noah, we’d have had revival”. I doubt though that they would have lasted through one week of what Noah had to endure. The mocking of those around him would have stopped them, let alone the sheer tremendous weight of what was before him.

You might be asking yourself what this has to do with an enemies’ camp. Noah had endured living in an age where people couldn’t even think good thoughts. You find his story in Genesis chapters 6-9. Genesis 6:5 tells us, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Even the imaginations of their thoughts were continually evil. During this time God was even sorry that he had made man. Talk about an enemies’ camp. Noah lived at a time when the entire world was an enemies’ camp. During this evil time, God looked down on earth and there was one man on the whole earth who was serving him with all his heart. Genesis 6:8 tells us, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Talk about getting God’s attention. Verse 13 tells us, “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” People had gotten so violent that even the earth itself was violent. Talk about a vicious enemies’ camp. The devil ruled the evil world in that day, and to the devil, you can believe Noah was an enemy. Noah stood true to God. Even through those times that he may have felt that there was no use to keep preaching, he kept on. II Peter 2:5 tells us, “And (God) spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” In the middle of the enemies’ camp, he stayed upright and righteous before God. He stayed faithful to the task that God had given him. He kept on even though it seemed like no one was listening.

God may have sent you to the enemies’ camp to preach. Everyone deserves an opportunity to hear God’s Word. If they choose to turn it down, then it is their choice. However, it is God’s nature to be sure that it is presented to them. Even the enemy deserves an opportunity to hear God’s Word. Our ministry director, Brother Goad, has often been used to give the last warning to many people. He has often been used by the Lord to give that last rebuke to those who were on their way out the door. This is a hard ministry to have. It seems sometimes that you aren’t reaping, because so many of this kinds of people have already turned the message down, but God through His mercy is giving them one more chance. You have to keep on preaching and give God the results. His reward will not depend on

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how many hears, but on how faithful you were to carry His message. Keep on carrying His Word, even if it seems like no one hears. You don’t know who might be listening and hearing with their heart, even though they would never admit it to you. If God has put you there in someone’s life to present the truth, stand ye therefore. Do what He says. Move when He says to speak. Be quiet when He tells you to be quiet. Then leave the results up to God.

The story of the watchman on the wall gives a good lesson for everyone who is carrying God’s Word in any way, and really that should be all of us. It is found in Ezekiel 33. God here is speaking to the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel also lived in the middle of an enemies’ camp when it seemed like no one was listening. He was a prophet, a spokesman for God, when Israel had turned its back on God. As a summary of this section of scripture, God told him to cry aloud and spare not. Ezekiel 33:7-9 tells us, “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.” We are to tell what God tells us to tell, and obey Him whether or not we think that they will receive it. It is not our place to make that judgment call. Judgment is the Lord’s.

At the time of Ezekiel there were many shepherds who didn’t do this. They didn’t find it to be a priority to lead the sheep. If we read on to chapter 34, it tells us about these shepherds. Read this chapter. It is a picture of what happens when the shepherds fail their flock. If you are a pastor and the church is your sheep, then this applies to you. If you are parents and your sheep are your children, then this can apply to you as well. If you are teachers, this can apply to you. If you are someone with a burden for the lost and your flock is those who God has given you a burden for, this can apply to you as well. This chapter closes with the words, “And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.” We serve a wonderful God. We serve a shepherd who left the ninety and nine to go after the one that was lost. We need to do the same. Even if it is an enemies’ camp that we are dwelling in, and it seems that no one hears, we need to declare God’s Word.

Even when we are in the enemies’ camp, we have to stay faithful to the message that God has entrusted us with. He has entrusted us with His Word. He has entrusted us with the Holy Ghost that He has placed in us. We need to stay faithful. Cry the message out loud. Who knows the power that your words will have. Remember that it is the Word of God that you carry. It isn’t your own word. That makes a difference. Doesn’t the Word of God come with its own guarantee that it won’t go forth void? Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth…” Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not

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return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” So what do you do if you find that it seems like your whole world is an enemies’ camp, and it seems like nobody is listening? Carry God’s Word. Keep preaching. Keep singing. Keep witnessing. Keep teaching. Keep loving. Somehow, somewhere, you will reap.

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Chapter 13. When the Weak Become Strong

Gideon

I was praying on the day that I wrote this chapter about some things that God had told me to do. I’ve really not done them. I’ve worked at them for several years, but never totally gotten these things accomplished. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was because every time that I stepped in that direction, the devil would come in like a flood. I couldn’t climb over it enough to do what it was that God wanted done. I was praying one day about my weaknesses in this area. God put the title for this chapter in my mind on that day. I had looked at my weaknesses and I had begun to settle for them. God let me know that my weaknesses were not an excuse to fail to get the job done. Paul said it best in II Corinthians 12:9-11, “And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” When we are weak we are the strongest. So how can our weakness be an excuse not to step out in faith and do something for God? So how can our weakness be an excuse to keep us out of the enemies’ camp?

One of my favorite people in the Bible is Gideon. Not because he is a strong perfect type, but because he demonstrated that when are weak, in God we are strong. At the beginning of our story, the enemy has camped itself against Israel. The situation is found in Judges 6:4-6, “And they (the enemy, the Midianites) encamped against them (Israel), and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number; and they entered into the land to destroy it.” They needed a deliverer. God sent a farmer from a poor family. Judges 6:12 tell us, “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” God sent a heavenly messenger who called this poor farmer a mighty man of valor. God sees us as we will be in Him, not as we are now. After the angel of the Lord spoke to Gideon, then he still had to have 2 more miraculous signs from the Lord. After that, though, he was ready to go. It is a good thing that he was ready and built up in faith, because after that night the whole city was trying to kill him. That was his start in the ministry. That was his first experience with the enemies’ camp. His own city tried to kill him because he obeyed God. He hadn’t even gotten to the enemies’ camp yet. Gideon may have been weak, but he had learned that his weakness didn’t matter. He had learned that in the enemies’ camp, you have to let God be God. God had him to gather an army together to go against the Midianites. Remember, he wasn’t a general, just a farmer. He may have been

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concerned the whole time that there would be enough people to go with him to battle. You can imagine how that would be like. We are afraid that we won’t be able to gather a big enough crowd to have a revival service with guest speakers and singers. Sometimes we back up on obeying God because we think that we can’t pull a crowd. Thank God that we don’t have to pull an army together. Gideon did pretty good. He gathered an army that was 32,000 strong. God told him there was too many. He told him that he would have to send some of them home. I can imagine that Gideon shook his head at that, but he obeyed God. They sent home anyone who didn’t want to go, or anyone who was afraid. If you have something to do for God, then you will find that those who will hinder you the most will be those who really didn’t want to be there, and those who dwell in fear and unbelief. This was a good thing to do to send these folks home. You don’t need fear and unbelief to surround you as counsel when you are about to enter into the enemies’ camp. Then God told him that there were still too many. He told Gideon to give them the water test in Judges 7:5. They were told to drink water and those that lapped with their tongue were keepers. Those that bowed down to drink were to go home. I think that maybe this demonstrated choosing the ones who were vigilant and watchful. I am not really sure. I have heard hundreds of things preached by hundreds of different preachers. Gideon was left with an army of only 300 men. Now let’s do a little review. Remember the enemies’ camp. Its description was found at the beginning of this chapter. Remember the people who were so many that they covered the land like grasshoppers. Gideon was to face this army with only 300 men. God was getting ready to prove how great He was. He was not going to prove how great Gideon was. This was too impossible of a task to do that. How could He prove how great this army of only 300 was? God was going to prove how great He was. Read the rest of the chapter. The only thing that Gideon’s army had to do was to obey God. Because of their obedience, the enemy killed themselves. There were 120,000 Midianites that fell in battle that day. Not one of Gideon’s army was slain.

Gideon became a wise judge over Israel. How do I know? Read his answer when they came to him to ask him to be their ruler in Judges 8:23, “Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also; for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.” Now notice that he wasn’t saying this to turn the job down. He was saying this because he had learned that the weak can be made strong in the Lord if they will step aside and let Him be. What kind of a leader was Gideon? As long as he lived, Israel served the Lord.

So what about those times when we stand on the edge of the enemies’ camp and we say to God, “God I can’t. I just don’t have what it takes.” I remember one time that I told God that. He answered me by reminding me that He had made the heavens and the earth. If he told me to do something, I may as well know that I could. You can too. He isn’t looking for those who are great. He’s looking for

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those that are weak enough to let Him be strong in and through them. He is looking for those that He can prove Himself strong in their behalf. So when you are weak, remember Gideon. That is when you are strongest. The enemies’ camp belongs to the Lord.

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Chapter 14. When the Strong Become Weak

Or When the Enemies’ Camp Becomes the Apple of Our Eye

Samson

One of the first things that we have to remember about Samson is that he was set aside for a purpose and separated for this purpose from before his birth. There are only a few people in the Bible that this happened to. One such person was Jeremiah. God said about Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Samson was also ordained of God before his birth. I have known others today who had the same type of calling. I have heard of parents that God had spoken to before their child was born that their child would be servants of God. Judges 13:3-4 tells us, “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine and strong drink, and eat not any unclean things. For lo thou shalt conceive and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” Samsons’ parents were dedicated. Both of them were serious about doing what the Lord had commanded them as far as the requirements for raising Samson. His father got serious about the subject as well. Verse 8 tells us, “Then Manoah entreated the Lord, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.” When his wife told him that an angel of the Lord had appeared to her and she told him the angel’s message, Manoah didn’t shrink back in unbelief. He didn’t doubt his wife. There was no lack of faith. The Bible didn’t record that he had any struggle. He just wanted to be sure that he got all of the details right. So he asked the angel to come back so that both of them could hear. I can see why the Lord chose this couple as parents of one who was set aside from his birth.

Manoah’s reaction is a message to fathers everywhere. It is a message especially to today’s fathers. I can say that through my years of teaching, there have been only a few times that both parents came to enroll their children in our Christian School. Most of the times it has been the mothers. There have been few times that I can even speak to the Dad’s about their children’s scholastic or spiritual welfare. Most of the time, before my conversation with them can get started, the Dad’s will tell me this. “I will go get my wife. She handles the affairs of our children”. That is not how God made the family to be. There is nowhere in God’s Word that a family is to be structured in this way. However, we read over and over that the man is the leader of his household. He is not exempt in the spiritual part of the family. Matter of fact, he is the one that is to be the spiritual as

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well a natural head of his household. If this is left to the wife, there is a crippling of the family. This easily leads to problems not only between the husband and wife, but also between both of them and their children. This gives a place where the devil can come in and destroy all. Ephesians 5:22 tells us, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” If husbands fail to lead their household, then the wife cannot submit. This causes things in the family to be out of balance, and often out of focus. (Hey, wives, remember I’m a wife. I’m on your side. That’s why I know that this is the way that things work best.) Here are some duties that apply to both of you. Here are several verses. Deuteronomy 6:7 Proverbs 22:6 II Corinthians 12:14 Ephesians 6:4 I Timothy 3:4 Proverbs 13:24 Proverbs 19:18 Deuteronomy 4:9 Isaiah 28:9

Samson’s father knew that as the spiritual leader of his household that he had a duty. He asked that the angel appear and let him know what was required of him. In verse 9 we read, “And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah: and the angel of God came again….” Both of these parents were serious in raising their children in the ways of the Lord. There was no compromise there. Samson grew up keeping these things that his parents had committed to him. Samson had a problem though. He kept messing around with the Philistine women. The Philistines were his enemy. They were the reason that he had been born. He was born to deliver Israel from the Philistines. The enemy began slowly to become the apple of his eye, the thing that he desired most. God knew that Samson’s purpose was to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. He also knew that the enemy had become the apple of Samson’s eye. Judges 14:4 tells us that when Samson asked for a wife from the Philistines, “..his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.” I believe that God was trying to turn Samson against the Philistines. He allowed the thing that was trying to entrap Samson to become the thing that he was angriest at. God works many ways in our lives. This must have worked. Judges 15:20 tell us, “And he judged Israel in the day of the Philistines twenty years.” Often when we think of the story of Samson, we think just of his failures. We think of Samson and Delilah. We forget the 20 years that he judged Israel as an upright judge.

There were 20 years that he served the Lord in the purpose that the Lord had for him. Then things started to go wrong again. His old problem cropped up again. Why does this happen? We have seen so many people in the limelight as well as those that we are familiar with in our own lives who had served God

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faithfully for years. Then something went terribly wrong. I was talking with someone who was telling me that a pastor in their church had to be dismissed because he was having an affair with a woman in his congregation. How do these things go so terribly wrong in the lives of those who have served God for years? Sin is like a weed that grows in our spirit. Have you ever weeded your garden on a hot and dry day when the soil was baked? When you try to pull up that weed, you get everything but the roots. Then before long you go back again and you can’t even tell that the weed has been pulled. When the soil of our heart is allowed to get hard and dry without the watering of God’s Word and His Spirit, it is hard to get out the roots of sin. God will convict us over and over. We will pull up the part that is showing. We change our behavior or the part that can be seen above the soil. However, we fail to deal with the part that is beneath the surface, the root of why we sin. The sin keeps coming back. The devil begins to condemn us for this sin, and this sin gives him a hook to catch us with. This sin gives him a stronghold over us in our spiritual lives, which leads to a stronghold in our physical lives. He is very gifted at manipulating our sins and weaknesses. The struggle eventually wears us out spiritually. We give in to that sin. These “sudden falls” that it seems people make are not sudden at all. This process might have gone on for years. In Samson’s case it was for 20 years.

Sin is not a joke. We live in a society that teaches that what is right for you might not be right for me, and what is wrong for you might not be wrong for me. That is not right in the eyes of God. He gave us His Word, and that Word is set in stone. Sin is sin and it will destroy. Jeremiah 5:25 tells us, “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.” Galatians 6:7-8 tell us, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Romans 6:23, “But the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Mark 8:36-37, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” There are absolute truths in God’s Word. We cannot change them to fit our own desires. The truth of the Lord will stand. If we sin, then we are walking on a sure path to destruction. If we allow sin to control us, we can die eternally. Hebrews 10:26 tells us, “for if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifices for sins.”

Now I am sure that when you read the above paragraph that some of you will experience condemnation. There will be some that will read this and the devil will land on you terribly to bring you into condemnation. Condemnation is not of the Lord. The devil will use condemnation to prevent us from being able to search our soul. The devil will use condemnation to stop God from being able to convict us. God’s conviction is a blessing. It is one of the most loving things that God can do. When God convicts, he shows us the places where the roots of sin are hiding in

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our lives. When we repent of these and submit them to God, He delivers us and these roots are pulled out. The key is that we have to really want Him to do this. That is where so many fail. In the deepest part of their heart, they really don’t want to let this go. The soil of their heart becomes harden. They pull and pull but only get out the top part. If the soil of your heart is tender toward God, then God can pull everything out, root and all. However, if the devil is condemning you, he can make you feel so guilty over 100 things, including the one thing that God is convicting you of, that you shrink back and fail to allow God to finish His work in you. We are not under condemnation. Conviction is not condemnation. Learn to be able to tell the difference. Condemnation comes when the devil drives your sin and your weaknesses in your face. It comes when he brings up things that you have long ago been forgiven of. If comes when he brings up scores of things that you haven’t even thought of doing. To keep from this, we have to be sure in our relationship with the Lord. When the devil starts condemning, just go to the Lord and ask Him. If it isn’t a problem with Him, then don’t let it be a problem with you. If it is, submit your heart to God and He will do that complete work. There will be no roots left to crop up later. How would Samson’s story have ended if he had done this?

The roots of Samson’s sin cropped up again in Judges 16:1, “Then went Samson to Gaza and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.” Now remember that Gaza was Philistine territory. Here he was in the enemies’ camp because of the roots of sin that he hadn’t allowed God to deliver him from. When the enemies’ camp becomes the apple of our eye, be sure that our eyes can be put out by that sin that drew us there. Whether it be our physical or spiritual eyes, we will loose our vision. That is just what happened to Samson. We read in verse 2, “And it was told the Gazites saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all night, saying, when it is day, we shall kill him.” When you are drawn into the enemies’ camp because of your sin, then don’t think that the enemy will turn out to be your friend. So many people do this. One of the first steps in compromise will be that we make friends with the world. This might even happen under the disguise of saying that we are only reaching out to them in the Lord. When we do this, don’t expect those people who are not God’s people to be anything other than your enemy. When you walk in territory that is not the Lord’s, then you are in the enemies’ camp. Don’t expect them to be your friends. Samson found that out and nearly lost his life there in Gaza.

I think that this trip was the beginning of Samson’s fall. Why? The enemy now knew his weakness, and they began to devise a plan to use that weakness to destroy him. The enemy will know about that little root that you allow in your life. He will devise a plan to destroy you by using this against you. In the next verse, Delilah came on the scene and we all know what happened from there. Samson was blinded, he was bound, and he was grounded by the devil.

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I love the mercy of God. We are blessed to serve such a wonderful God. God had mercy on Samson on that last day, and he let his strength return once more. The house that day was full of Philistines. Probably many of them were enemies’ that Samson had regarded as friends in the compromised state of his sin. Just on one roof the Bible says there were 3,000 Philistines. They had gathered there that day not only to mock Samson, but also to mock his God that had been the source of his miraculous strength against them for over 20 years. When we fail God and give into that root of sin, not only will the enemy mock us, but they will mock God as well. You represent a holy God. When you walk in less than holiness, than you are a reflection of God. People will see in you a less than holy God. When you fail, people will doubt God. That is how it is. The people that day gathered to mock God. Samson’s strength was renewed. God gave him a last touch. Judges 16:30 tell us, “And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

God was merciful to Samson. Here is one thing to think about though. How might Samson’s story have ended if it hadn’t ended there? What if he would have continued in his supernatural strength as an upright judge for another 20 years or more? What if Samson would have been like Joseph in Potiphar’s house when he ran out so fast that he left his coat in the hands of the “harlot”, Potiphar’s wife? Because of the price of sin that he had to pay, we will never know. Sin demands a price. It doesn’t matter that no one knows what is going on in your heart, or it seems like no one is watching. You will pay. So will your family and those that love you. Sin is never worth the cost. The devil can paint a pretty picture but it is not reality. Sin is reality. It is never worth it.

Hold on to God’s hand. Let the Word of God and the Spirit of God have their way in your life. Commit and submit to God. He’ll take away those weaknesses and make them to become your greatest strengths. Build your house upon the rock of the Lord. Then when those storms of temptation come, your house will stand.

We have to remember that our battle is not flesh and blood. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We have to resist the devil when he throws temptation in our face. James 4:7 tell us, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Notice the key words in this scripture, “Submit to God”. If we submit to God, then we can resist the devil and he has to flee. If we hold on to sin, and we fail to submit certain areas of our heart and mind to God, then we have no authority over satan. He will eventually win. Be careful though not to give into condemnation. Don’t fall into condemnation because the devil is tempting you. He will tempt everyone. One mistake that we make is when the devil tempts us, and we run in horror because we have had such evil thoughts. The

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Don’t go into the enemies’ camp because of sin. Remember Samson. You will never win there. Delilah was only Samson’s last mistake. Don’t let the enemy send your first one. The devil may have a Delilah picked out for you. It may be something or someone to bring your destruction. It may be something that will gradually cause you to compromise in your faith. It may be something that will keep you too busy to think about God, or to serve Him as the number one thing in your life. It may be a bad choice that you may make in the flesh, which will weaken you. It may be anything that the devil can use against you. Just be sure that the roots of sin are dug out and that you have your hand tight in the Lord’s hand. Be sure that when your eyes go toward Gaza that you look back into Jesus’ eyes of love for you. Then you will forget all about Gaza. After all, what does Gaza hold that compares with the love of God and His promises for you? When we are close to Jesus and wrapped up, tangled up in His wonderful love, we know the message that is preached in Romans 8:31-39. Who shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Certainly not Delilah.

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Chapter 15. When the Enemy Brings His Camp to You

Jesus

If you do anything for God that shakes the devil’s kingdom, you can know ahead of time that he will come and tempt you. This even happened to Jesus in his desert temptation in Luke 4:1-13. The temptation in the desert closes with this verse. Verse 14 tell us, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region around about Him.” At the beginning of the story, Jesus had fasted in the desert for 40 days. It was there that the devil brought against him an enemies’ camp of temptation. Jesus was flesh just like you and me. Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities’ but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 2:18 tells us, “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.” Jesus knows well how to strengthen and minister to you during times of temptation. He Himself was tempted. He knows well how to be there for you.

The first thing that the devil used in his cruelly devised enemies’ camp of temptation was plain old bread. Could you imagine fasting for 40 days in the desert heat and harsh cold nights? The first thing that the devil appealed to was Jesus’ flesh. Jesus had not always had flesh. He had spent much more time in the Spirit with God than he had in the flesh. The devil went right for His weakest point. He’ll do the same to you as well when he puts you in his enemies’ camp. What did Jesus use to fight back? He used the Word of God. He used the same Word that we have to use to overcome that same enemy that we have. In Luke 4:4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God.”

The second temptation came in that desert enemies’ camp in verses 4-7. The devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them if He would worship him. I used to think that this was a stupid thing for the devil to offer the One Who was Lord of all. How could the devil give Jesus the kingdoms of the world? Then I started to understand that the devil does own all of this world’s kingdoms. Most of the people who run the kingdoms of this world are run by the devil. Isn’t that true? Most of the riches of this world are in the pocket of the wicked that are controlled by the devil. The fame that this world has to offer comes because the people of the world have lifted up someone in their worldly flesh. He really could give Jesus all these things. He controlled them, even though this is only a temporary control. He could make this carpenter’s son very, very wealthy, and very rich and famous. He could give him a recognized name and power in this world. Remember that at His time, before His resurrection, only a few people in the world knew Him. Jesus didn’t fall for this temptation. Because He didn’t, He was known down through time world over as an eternal Savior. If He would have given into this temptation, He would have only been rich and

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famous until His death, and after that He would have been mocked eternally in hell. He answered the devil in verse 8. “Get thee behind me, satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” How many individuals do you know that have compromised to find fame and riches. At first we might only think of the rock stars that started out as Gospel singers. Or we might think of those people who compromised in their beliefs to find a position of fame in the world. Sad to say, we also have to name the preachers who forsook a real anointing to go after a cheap show to be able to draw in the crowds, to build a big church with a big salary. This is actually much worse than those that I mentioned before. How many people do you know that sold out because they could not overcome the pride of life? Most of the time, when you sell out for Jesus you won’t be rich and famous. Matthew 5:12 tells us, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven….” Matthew 6:5-8 tells us how we should pray, but it also gives a good example of how we are to live. Verse 6 closes with the words, “…and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

I remember the story of a missionary who had spent many years overseas in a hard area. He came home to the US. His ship was pulling into the harbor when he noticed a huge crowd of people waiting for someone with banners of welcome. He was excited because he thought that they had gathered to welcome him home and honor him for his labor overseas. He soon became disappointed because he found out that this welcome was not for him but for some person who was famous in this world. As he stood on the dock in his disappointment the Lord spoke to him. He told him that person that the people had gathered to honor there that day would only have this kind of welcome. Then the Lord showed him a glimpse of the honor and welcome that waited for this faithful servant. How small that welcome party looked after that. His disappointment was over. Those people who push to get noticed by this world or push to get the temporary awards that this world offers will often loose their eternal rewards. Give me the eternal treasures.

The next temptation that Jesus faced was this. The devil told him to cast himself down off of the pinnacle of the temple. He told Jesus, “For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee.” Why was this temptation the most deadly of all the things that Jesus encountered in the desert enemies’ camp? At first I just thought that it meant that the devil was getting Jesus to test His relationship with God. I think, though, that a key to understanding this final but most evil temptation comes when we read the words, “He shall give His angels charge over thee.” Jesus answered by saying in verse 12, “It is said, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” What was so important about this temptation? To understand this we need to fast forward in the story of Jesus’ life to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus told the soldiers there that came to deliver Him to His death these words found in Matthew 26:53. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father; and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” On that day in the desert, the devil put in Jesus’ mind the thoughts that He could call on angels to deliver Him. What if He would have listened to this on that day at

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Calvary? It was His choice that He died. In John 19:11 we read Jesus’ Words that He spoke to Pilate. “Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above…” He had submitted to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane in His prayer there. Matthew 26:42, “…O my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” The cross of Calvary was a very ugly place. It was a place of agonizing pain. The Romans had declared that it was illegal to crucify Roman citizens. Jesus knew about the agony that He was about to go through. He not only knew the physical pain that He would have to endure, but He also knew the agony that He would face when His Father would place on Him the sins of the whole world, and then turn His back. We don’t like to concentrate on the human side of Jesus, but it was there all the same. This human side was the one that would suffer. This flesh side that the devil tempted in the desert in the first temptation was the side that was going to hang on that cross and feel the torment. It was this human side that was going to be beaten until no one could recognize who He was. It was the flesh part of Jesus that was going to agonize there on the cross. What would have happened if He had given into a temptation that was greater than the one that He faced in the desert? What if He would have called those angels that the devil had confronted him about on that day in the desert? Where would we be? What hope would we have? I am so glad that He stood up to the devil both on that day in the desert and that day on Calvary. What about the rest of His ministry? Read this section of scripture in I Corinthians 15:19-28. Praise God for His victory.

You might argue with me that your ministry, or the things that you are doing for Jesus, do not have as great an impact as the things that He did? Because of this, you might think that the devil won’t tempt you. What does Jesus say about this thought that what you have to do is not as great as His ministry? John 14:12-14 tells us, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father, And whatever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” How will you be able to do these things? Read verse 16 and 17, “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not neither knoweth him: but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” One of the greatest mistakes that we make is failing to see the greatness of what God has given us to do. We allow the enemy to personally assault our own personal flesh, and weaknesses, so that he keeps us from recognizing that the Holy Ghost that we have in us is the same that Jesus had. The enemy tries to keep us so beaten down in His camps that we can’t even understand the truth and the power of the Word of God that we carry. What we have to offer the world is very important. It is light in a dark world. It is hope where there is none. It is power to believe.

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We have the same Word and the same Holy Spirit that kept Jesus in the desert enemies’ camp of temptation. Your flesh may be down and weak when the enemy comes against you to try you. The devil will wear you down or wait for a weak time to move in against you. Your weakness though can become your greatest strength. When we are weakest, that is when we rely on the strength of the Lord. The same God that kept you through the trials of yesterday will keep you in the desert enemies’ camps that you may face. At the close of your desert time, you may find yourself beginning the next powerful phase of a supernatural anointed victory in God.

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Chapter 16. Our Own Enemies’ Camps

So what about our own enemies’ camps? What about those personal battles

that we face every day? One of the hardest of these is found when we become our own enemy, and indeed when that happens we are our own worst enemy. Romans 7:18-25 talks about this. This section of scripture is followed by chapter 8 which begins with the verse that we all love to quote, Romans 8:1. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” However, when we quote this scripture we often overlook the closing phrase. If we want to walk in the place where we no longer are under condemnation, we must not walk in the flesh. We must walk in the Spirit. If we want to overcome the battle that Paul talks about then we have to walk in the Spirit. It will not work any other way. The rest of Romans 8 gives us guidelines for walking in the Spirit. If we want to overcome this battle that we have with ourselves, then we have to walk in the Spirit. Here is a section from my book Walking in the Spirit that talks about this.

“One of the best illustrations I have heard about how to let the Spirit side of you rule in your life is this one. A man had two dogs. One grew stronger and stronger and the other grew weaker. Someone asked him how he got the strong one to be so much stronger. He answered that the one who was the strongest was the one he fed the most. You have a Spirit side (Jesus in you through the Holy Ghost). You also have the old man, which is your flesh man. The one that you feed the most will be the one that controls your life. That will be true whether you mean it to be true, whether you want it to be true, or not. Here is an example. Let’s say your day is so full, you have no time left for prayer. Maybe once a week you open your Bible. If you have a minute to relax, you choose to unwind in front of the TV. Soon a minute of watching turns into a couple of hours. All that junk from there goes into your mind and spirit. When you have a minute to read, you pick up the latest novel instead of your Bible. Never mind the bad parts, you can ignore them and shut them out. (Hate to tell you but it doesn’t work that way. Just like what we eat becomes a part of our physical body, what we take into our spirit, our mind and heart, becomes a part of us as well.) Most of your conversation with others has nothing to do with God. Your day is filled with talking about the weather, the latest world’s problems, what you had last night for supper, or what you are doing after work. You are almost embarrassed to talk about God. Religious things are private. Instead of listening to Gospel on the radio on the way to work, you switch on whatever happens to come on. Which are you feeding, the Spirit side, or your flesh side? Which will be the strongest in your life? Which will lead you when you need guidance and you don’t have time to stop and think? When that crisis comes, will the daily strength that you have gained from spending time in God’s Spirit be there to strengthen you? When you need that extra love for those that are around you, will God’s Spirit be there to love through you, or will

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your flesh be in control? When someone you care for is in need of prayer, will you have confidence in your own prayers, or will you have to run find someone to pray? When the devil comes in like a roaring lion to destroy you, are you standing in the power of God’s Spirit and the promises of His Word? Who are you feeding the most?

If you know that you are not feeding the Spirit, then this is what to do. Realize your mistake. Repent, because these things are sin. Letting anything come between you and God is a sin. Ask Him to strengthen and help you in these areas. Wake up first thing in the morning and start your day in scripture reading or prayer. Proverbs 8:17 says, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.” Another key, fall in love with Jesus all over again. Renew your relationship with Him. Remember what it’s like to be in love. I get lonely for Him if I haven’t talked to Him. Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the hart (deer) panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” David loved his Lord. All throughout the Psalms we read how he longed to be with Him. We need to have a heart like David, in love with the Lord and longing for Him. Then our day will never get too busy for Him.

Another thing that will help is fasting. Fasting is starving your body for the things that it craves, which is namely food. Fasting is mentioned several times in the Bible. Many times in the Old Testament, God called His people to fast and repent. In Joel 1:14 they were called on to fast. In Matthew 6, Jesus talks about fasting. Examples of some of the men who fasted are: Moses, Israel, Elijah, Ezra, Daniel, Paul, and even Jesus. There are several ways that you can fast. One is to completely go without eating for a day, or even three days. Some people go on what is called a Daniel fast. Daniel went without eating any type of rich or sweet food, or any type of meat, for 40 days. You may choose to fast by laying down something that you like, and not eating it for a period of time, or even for good. Fasting helps you to put your flesh under subjection and let it know whose boss. We’ll talk more about other types of commitments that you can make that will strengthen you in walking in the Spirit in a later chapter. When you fast, be sure to drink plenty of liquids. Also, when you go off of a fast, don’t dive in and devour a 10-course meal first thing. Go easy and spare your system. Also, it is good to eat lots of fruits and grains before and after a fast. Another benefit of a fast is a very special benefit that Jesus Himself tells us about in Matthew 17:20-21. The disciples were upset because they were not able to have authority over a demon that they were praying out of someone. Jesus answered them when they questioned why this was so be saying, “Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” There will be some devils that will pester you that you have to fast to take authority over in your life. I don’t mean that you can be possessed by the devil,

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because the devil can’t live where the Spirit of God lives. But the devil can bind you and he can bind others you love, and the circumstances around both of you. By fasting you bring out the big guns and do serious Spiritual warfare. This section from my book Walking in the Spirit talked about some things to do and some things not to do. Through walking in the Spirit, we can overcome the enemies’ camp of self.

Another enemies’ camp that we must overcome is the battle with satan. We must know our rights as children of God. We must know the authority that Jesus has given us, the church, His body. We have the blood of Jesus. We have the Word of God. We have the Spirit of God within. We have the authority given us by the name of Jesus. All of these things give us authority over satan. We just have to learn how to use them, and know that they will all work in our behalf. Here are some verse that talk about our authority over satan: Luke 10:17-20, II Corinthians 10:3-4, Ephesians 6:11-17. We have the power and authority and all that we need to overcome this enemy. We must however, walk in the Spirit to do so. Here is a section from my book Your Authority as a Child of God.

Taking Authority

One of the best illustrations that I can give to explain what it means to take authority comes from my years of being a teacher/principal in both the public and private schools. One of the lessons that I had to learn early in my teaching years was how to take authority. I learned it in a small public school that actually had grades K-12 in one building. All teachers were required to take turns doing hall duty after school, monitoring the halls while the buses were loading. I was new at teaching, and I was totally new at having to deal with teenagers. I was new to them, and I was an elementary school teacher, which made things harder. It was beneath them to listen to me. I was nervous at having to tell them what to do, and I was a soft-spoken, mild mannered person. Often that doesn’t mix with teaching older students. I had not learned to take authority. I barely had learned how to take authority in my classroom, but my hall duty time was a nightmare. Nobody listened. I was too unsure to take the authority that was mine as a teacher. Some of the teachers who had been there for years had no problem with their authority. They knew their place. They knew their rank and they knew how to pull it. Most importantly the kids knew, too. When they walked into the hall, the place would grow quiet. If there was something going on that wasn’t supposed to, it stopped when they showed up. These older teachers walked in their authority. They were sure in that authority. Later on as I grew in understanding my place and how to take the authority that was mine, when I walked in I had the same affect. When I learned that I could take authority, it became easier. When the teenagers saw that I had started taking authority, they listened when I told them what to do. It wasn’t long before my presence had the same affect on these kids that the older teachers had. Now you may ask what does this have to do with taking authority over the devil. The devil is just like an unruly teenager. You can talk to him all you want

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to, you can even quote scripture all you want to, it will have little affect until you take authority over him. This comes from knowing your place as a child of God and walking in it. As you grow in your relationship with God, and you grow in understanding of who you are according to God’s Word, you will grow in the authority that you have over satan. Just as I grew in my authority with the teenagers on hall duty, you have to grow in your authority over the devil. You might say you are on permanent hall duty. It is your job to monitor the devil’s behavior and see to it that he does not get into things that he isn’t supposed to.

Now when I started teaching one of the main problems that I had as a newcomer to the school was that I didn’t actually know what all the kids were supposed to be doing, and what they were not allowed to do. I didn’t know their restrictions. It didn’t help that they knew their restrictions, and they knew that I didn’t. They were some of the best little con artists. They could talk me right into my giving them permission to do what they knew they weren’t supposed to do. They could get by with doing things in front of me to break the rules, because they knew I didn’t know the rules. As children of God, we face this same thing with the devil. We often don’t know his limits. God has put strict limits on what he can and cannot get by with. For example, if you read the story of Job, you will find out in chapter 1 that for the devil to try Job, he had to get permission from God. Read the whole first chapter. Then reread Job 1:10-12. In this section of scripture the devil tells God that because of His protection, he can’t touch Job. The devil knows the limitations that God has put on his work. The problem is that often we do not. The Bible is filled with teaching about our position as children of God and our spiritual authority in that position. That is why it is so important to know the Word of God. We run everywhere to find all the answers, but never to the one true source. We spend time doing everything else, but never have time to read the scriptures like we know we should. (By the way, watching TV will not insure our soul’s salvation, rather it steals from our spiritual strength. If you think you don’t have time, start recording how much time you spend in front of the TV.) Through God’s Word we will find out the rules and just what the devil can do.

Besides knowing what the rules are, to be able to take authority, you have to learn who you are and what rights and privileges you have as a child of God. This doesn’t mean that these rights and privileges are based on who you are in the flesh. Many times we get this confused. We think that because we aren’t perfect, or super-spiritual, or giant Christians, we don’t have any rights as children of God. Now if we are not committed and submitted to God we loose many of our rights. For example, the Bible tells us that if we are double-minded, we won’t receive anything from God (James 1:8). It tells us that if we are not obedient to God then we loose our authority over the devil. It tells us that if we submit to God, then we can resist the devil and he has to flee (James 4:7). Therefore we know that if we are not submitted then we cannot resist him and have him flee. There are certain conditions of heart and life that we have to have to be able to take the authority that God has given us, and to take our position as children of God. But many

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people are walking so far in condemnation of the flesh, that they can’t see that their rights as children of God are not dependant in their strengths or weaknesses. As a teacher on hall duty, I was a lousy teacher, because I had not learned to take authority. However, my rights and the position I held as a teacher with all the authority that came along with it did not change just because I was a lousy teacher. I was still a teacher, and I had authority, even though I had not learned how to take it. That is the same way with you as a child of God. You just have to learn your position and walk in it. Then when you square your shoulders back and tell the devil to get off your premises, he has to listen.

Now the true test of my hall duty came one day when one of the teenagers had gotten hold of some bad drugs. He meant to do harm to teachers and students alike. I was able to take authority over him. He left the premises. That is how it is with the devil. He will come with the soul purpose of doing harm to you and those you love, and those you serve God with. When you know the rules and you know who you are, you can take authority, and the devil has to leave the premises. It is my prayer that through these pages, you learn that you can put him to flight.

Now before I go on in this book further, I want to take time to talk about casting out devils. This is our right as children of God to cast out devils. When people hear this they think of only one thing. They think of casting demons out of demon filled people. This is a genuine and very real ministry. I have seen this in our own ministry. There are people who come to the Lord as new Christians after a life filled with the occult and drugs, and they are possessed. I have seen these people delivered through the power of God. I want to say carefully though that this is not all there is to taking spiritual authority. Every day I have to take authority over the powers of hell who are trying to gain control of my life or the ministry that God has given me, especially in the ministry of working with young people. Especially if you are in some sort of ministry, you should know what I am talking about. We are in a spiritual battle and we had better learn how to take spiritual authority to be able to win this battle. The weapons that we have are not carnal, and we had better learn what they are and how to use them. If we never learn these things it will be easier for the devil to steal our day-to-day victory, and if we never learn them, he can eventually steal our soul. If we are in a ministry, that battle is compounded by the fact that not only will the devil come against us personally, but he will also come against the ministry that the Lord has given us. He means to keep us from doing that which God intends for us to do. If you think that you are not in a spiritual warfare and you think that you don’t really need all this, then you really need to beware. There is an old saying, “If the devil isn’t fighting you, then he may already have you.” The devil won’t fight you if you are living a compromised life. He will blind you into thinking that there really is no warfare in your life. Look out. All of us are in this spiritual warfare, if we are children of God. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” I pray that through these

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chapters you learn to identify the battle, and you learn how victorious you are. Ephesians 1:18-23, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” Amen Amen Amen Amen.

Another enemies’ camp that we may face may be those who come against us to destroy us. Isaiah 54:17 tell us, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and the very tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.” I’d like to say that the only people that the devil will use against the children of God are sinners. Sad to say, but the devil uses whoever yields his members to him. If we aren’t walking in the Spirit then we can be used by the devil. He prefers to use those who sit beside you in the pew to destroy you. This kind of enemy is harder to take. Also, the devil is sneaky. He will come often as an angel of light. When he uses those who appear righteous, then we are more easily deceived or venerable to them. We have to walk in the Spirit to protect ourselves from letting this happen. We also have to walk in the Spirit to keep our own hearts and minds upright before God so that they devil doesn’t use us against others. One example of this is a root of bitterness. The Bible tells us this concerning a root of bitterness. Hebrews 12:15, “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” When wrong attitudes such as bitterness creep into a family, or into a church, then many can be defiled by it. To escape this enemies’ camp, we have to keep our hand in the Lord’s hand and walk in Him.

Another enemies’ camp that we can find ourselves in comes when the devil attacks our health. When He does, we need to remember it is God’s will that we be in health and prosper. We have His word on that. We don’t have to stay sick. By His stripes we were healed. Satan is the author of sickness. When we can identify this, then we can rebuke it. We have a right as children of God to walk in healing. Here is a section from my book titled How to Walk in Healing.

God’s Will For You The Bible tells us plainly that it is good for us to be in health and prosper. (III John 2, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”) Here are other verses that tell our rights as children of God to walk in healing:

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Isaiah 53:5 tells us, “But He (Jesus) was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Luke 4:18 tells us, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me (Jesus), because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance of the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Proverbs 4:22 tells us, “For They (God’s Words) are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” Jeremiah 30:17 tells us, “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord….” Jeremiah 17:14 tells us, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.” Exodus 15:26 tells us, “…If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandment, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Psalms 91:16 tells us, “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. Isaiah 65:22 tells us, “They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” Here are accounts of some of the healings that Jesus did while He was on earth: (Read them. I have chosen the ones recorded in Matthew to make them easier to look up. There are many more. If you have a concordance, or cross reference Bible, look these up. There is strength in God’s Word. It is the only book that you can read that can build your faith in the powerful way that it can.) Matthew 8:14-15, Matthew 8:2-4, Matthew 9:2-8, Matthew 12:9-13, Matthew 12:15, Matthew 12:22, Matthew 8:28-34, Matthew 9:18-19, Matthew 9:18-26, Matthew 9:27-34, Matthew 15:22-28, Matthew 20:29-34 It is important to know that you are a child of God, and that part of your inheritance is the right to be healed. Stand on this knowledge and know who you are in God. When we are well, or sick, the devil specializes in condemning us. The best way to fight this condemnation is to ask God to reveal any sins that we haven’t confessed and repented. Then we put God’s Word in the devil’s face. If you have accepted salvation, and your sins are under the blood, you are a child of God. Instead of concentrating on trying to defend yourself on who you are in the natural, stand on who you are according to God’s Word. God’s Word declares some things about you. You need to start seeing yourself in the light of God’s Word. Declare who

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you are and stand on it. As children of God we have the right to these things: Galatians 3:29 tells us, “And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. John 1:12 tells us, “But as many as received Him to them, gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Romans 8:14 tells us, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Galatians 4:7 tells us, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” Ephesians 1:18 tells us, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Some people believe that healing is not for today. That it was only for

people in Bible times. It might be easier to accept that if I had never seen anybody healed, and I hadn’t been healed myself. God’s Word can build your faith, and so can the testimonies of those who have been healed. One of the greatest healings I have gotten was one that I didn’t even ask for, because I didn’t at the time know I needed it. It was an instantaneous healing. I had been in a major car wreck. I was pinned in with my car upside down. The emergency people at the scene said, “Wait, we can’t pull her out, she is bleeding too bad.” When they got me out I had blood down my arms and legs, even on my car seat, and on things lying there. To my amazement and theirs, by the time I was gotten out of the car, God had healed me completely. There was not a scratch on me. It wasn’t an internal injury because I had no problems later, and there was no blood around my face. I don’t even know what was hurt, but I do know that He fixed whatever was wrong. God has healed me many times. One of the first times I remember Him healing me was when I had broken my foot. It swelled up about twice its size and turned black and blue. I had one problem. I was to drive someone to a town 8 hours drive away from home. I was their only transportation. I couldn’t even put my weight on it, and to make the problem worse I had a straight drive car. We all prayed that night. The next day, I made the trip without a problem. My foot was healed. I heard a friend tell about how at a revival meeting they saw a little boy without an eye in his eye socket. His socket was empty. They prayed for him to be able to see. God did one better than that. The little boy can see now out of a beautiful little blue eye that God made especially for him. In another service a lady who had been in a wheel chair all her life rolled up to our pastor’s wife and asked her if she wanted to take a walk with her. Our pastor’s wife didn’t know that the lady couldn’t walk. She agreed. The lady got out of her chair and walked with her. By the end of the service she was running around the tent. I remember a lady who was in the hospital waiting a life saving surgery. She couldn’t have the surgery because of another complication. She started to get better. The doctor did more tests. Much to the doctors amazement they found a new valve had been put in her heart. The

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Master Surgeon had been at work. Another lady was dying because cancer had eaten away parts of her stomach and intestines. She was in the hospital basically to die there. Much to the doctor’s amazement she began to get better. Tests revealed that she had a new stomach and intestines that had been recon- structured without human hands. Another friend was in the hospital. A car had struck him and the bone in his arm had been shattered. X-rays started showing a new bone that grew in the place of the one that was shattered. The purpose of my telling how God has healed me, and others that I know is not to make you feel bad or bitter as to why God hasn’t healed you. The purpose is to encourage your faith. God’s Word teaches that God is no respecter of persons. What He does for one He will do for others. He will do for you.

God is still in the healing business. I have written a song that is called Jesus is a Healer. He is still a healer. I’ll share the words with you.

Jesus is a Healer Verse 1 As He stood in the courtyard, a Roman soldier was called in, To give Him a punishment, the soldier couldn’t understand. As he tore the back of Jesus with the whip in his hand, He could not see down through time down to where you stand. Chorus Jesus is a healer. He is a healer. No matter what your problems are, He’ll make you whole again. He is a healer, Jesus is a healer. And He will make you whole again. Verse 2 So your body’s tired and weary from the sickness that’s upon you. Your mind is so far from faith in satan’s battleground. Just think upon that courtyard, on that price He paid for you. As He looked down, down through time, with eyes of love on you. Yes, Jesus is a healer. He bore those stripes on the back for you. In those days the Roman soldiers used strips of leather, sometimes 10 in a bunch, with pieces of metal or glass tied on the ends. We know that He was also beaten so badly that you couldn’t tell what His features looked like. Through these stripes we are healed. (I Peter 2:24, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed.”) He took that pain and bore that suffering so that we don’t have to. I know it is His will for us to be healed. So do you. Not only that, I also know that His Word tells us that we are healed.

Whatever the enemies’ camps that we may have to face, we do not have to stay in them. The same God that delivered His children from these camps in Bible times will deliver us. We have to encourage ourselves in the Lord. We have to get out His Word and find our rights as His children. We have to pursue our enemy. We have to overtake Him and recover all.

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Closing When you find yourself in an enemies’ camp, remember these people whose stories you reviewed in this book. They were all people just like you. They either found victory or defeat in their enemies camps. God has given you all that you need to be able to overcome every enemy. John 1:12 tells us, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” The enemies’ camp is no home for a child of God. Rise up, shake yourself, and overcome. Those overcomers in the scriptures had no less in their favor than you do. Rise up, and be a conqueror, not the conquered. Rise up and your God will rise up with you. Be encouraged in the Lord. Pursue your enemy. Overtake him in the name of the Lord, and recover all. 7